


The Quality of Mercy

by Nyxelestia



Category: Merlin - Fandom
Genre: Drama, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-01
Updated: 2009-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-04 01:20:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxelestia/pseuds/Nyxelestia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uther starts to notice a few things about Arthur and his manservant. Which remind him a bit too much of a Queen and Sorceress from his own past for his comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1 of 4

_ **The Quality of Mercy 1 of 4** _

**A/N: Written for Round 1 of the merlincapfics challenge on LiveJournal. I picked prompts 16, 50, and 64 of the original prompt table.**

**This fic was _not_ supposed to be this freakin' long, but it blew up on me, and I'm honestly not really sure how it happened.**

**Pairings: Arthur/Merlin, Igraine/Uther, Igraine/Nimueh/Uther, Nimueh/Uther friendship**

* * *

It all started when Uther caught Arthur’s manservant _reading_.

Since when do commoners even know _how_ to read? Let alone read through the great tome before…whatever his name is, with the ease he is reading it with.

He saw the servant jump slightly as he closed the door, but he didn’t look up.

Oh, bloody hell, he was even _writing_ something.

He quietly walked up to right behind the boy – he may not have been fighting with his knights in quite a while, but hasn’t forgotten how to be one – and said out of the blue, “What are you doing?”

The servant jumped again and whipped around in his chair, and nearly fell off of it in the process, before scrambling to stand up and bowing, as he asked, “Sire?”

“Since when can a servant _read_? And write?”

“M-my mother taught me,” the nervous servant said. That didn’t change the fact that most commoners couldn’t read, and especially not well enough to read…the book appeared to be history tome of some kind, of Camelot.

Why the hell was a commoner reading a history tome?

Maybe he wasn’t a commoner…not a normal one. Some kind of plan, of a distant noble? Or maybe a well trained spy, trying to research details about Camelot…

Though imaging this bumbling idiot as a mastermind or spy of any kind was pushing the limits, really.

“And where did _she_ learn?”

“I’m not sure, sire. I think she learned from wherever Gaius learned – they’re siblings and all – and I guess he stuck around to be court physician and she started going around teaching-”

“Teaching?” Uther asked, eyes narrowed.

“Yea, I mean, yes, sire,” the idiot servant said, bowing his head slightly every time he used the title. He looked ridiculous, but Uther wasn’t about to stop him. He wasn’t Morgana. Or Arthur.

Or Igraine.

“What, exactly, do you mean by that?”

“Er…my mother used to say being able to read and write was being able to give and take knowledge beyond your normal bounds and that everyone deserved to have more and more knowledge so when she learned she would go around to all the villages and start by teaching some of the children how to read and how to write and then some of the adults would usually try to learn, some, too and she went across a bunch of kingdoms, but only a few villages usually because it takes a while to learn and she settled down in Ealdor when she gave birth to me-”

“You’re rambling,” Uther said, coldly. Goddamn, this boy was as bad as Morgana’s maidservant, maybe even worse.

The servant’s mouth shut abruptly.

“So your mother…is a teacher?”

The servant nodded again. “Ealdor – our village – is the best educated village in Northumbria. Everyone in it can read and write – everyone. My mother has made sure of it.”

Even though the boy made an attempt to keep a humble and straight face, the pride in his voice shone through.

Uther’s eyes narrowed and he pulled the parchment and book towards him.

“Why, exactly, are you researching Camelot architecture?” Was he looking for a weak spot in the castle?

“My village took some damage from the raiders, and the recent storms made it all worse. They were thinking of rebuilding the village with more proper houses, rather than just huts, and I thought I’d send them some of the ways Camelot was built to help them because the city is really strong and Ealdor is close to the border so it gets attacked a lot and…”

With a cold look from Uther, the servant shut his mouth again.

Internally, the king was rolling his eyes. The boy was like a dog. Whenever he chose an object for loyalty, he went the entire length of it, giving his life and possibly his sanity for them. Useful when it was Arthur. Amusing when it was his mother.

Looking around, he said, “Just how well can you read? And write?”

“Er…” He looked hesitant, before pushing the letter forwards.

It was…he refused to let his true feelings on to his face, but he really did find it quite…

“Impressive,” he said, coolly.

The servant looked rather shocked, but smiled and bowed again as he said, “Thank you, sire.”

The boy’s handwriting was neat, much neater than most commoners who knew how to read or write at all, and in surprisingly straight lines. Disturbingly enough, the penmanship was actually better than some of the nobles. It seemed to basically be a summary of some of the building methods. Hm…it was actually adjusted for a village.

This boy may have some usefulness in him, yes. Except…

“Stop fidgeting,” he commanded. The boy stopped, except now he looked doubly nervous.

This was rather amusing, actually. Hm. He was starting to see why Arthur kept him around.

“As for reading?” Uther asked. “Even teachers, I suspect, don’t read so well.”

“Er…”

Uther immediately pushed the tome towards him and pointed towards the beginning paragraph. “Outloud.”

Swallowing, the servant looked down, and began reading. The words slid effortlessly off his tongue, and apparently, the boy could read very well.

Keeping his face neutral, he grabbed a Latin book and opened it to a random page. “Well?”

“I don’t know Latin,” the boy said. “Just some Old Welsh-”

“You know the Old Tongue?” Uther asked, his eyes narrowed, this time.

The servant swallowed again, and nodded. “Yes, sire.”

Uther frowned, before shoving the Latin text at the servant – what the hell was his name again? – and saying, “Read it out loud.” Just how good was the servant?

The words were stilted and somewhat awkward, this time, but fairly solid, nonetheless, considering the alphabets were the same.

And when Uther grabbed an Old Tongue book, the reading was more sure. The boy couldn’t read the Greek at all, and Uther studied the boy carefully.

“How is it you can read and write better than half the nobles, and yet make for such a terrible manservant?”

Another nervous swallow. “I…I just like to read a lot of books? Hard not to, sire, between Gaius and my mother. And I’m good with languages, to be honest, sire.”

That rang a far too familiar tone in his head. Abruptly shutting the tomes and putting them back in their places, he said, “Where’s Geoffrey?”

“Down having lunch with Gaius, sire,” the servant said. “That’s why I’m here…help if anyone needs anything…”

“Geoffrey actually _trusts_ you with these things?” Geoffrey guarded these books like the Sphinx did treasure.

“I’m in here all the time,” the servant said. “I help him sort and such, and I…I like to read.”

Uther thinks back to the last time he can so easily remember Geoffrey trusting someone so low in rank with his books, and abruptly feels as if he has taken this entire thing too far.

“Replace these books to their appropriate shelves,” Uther said, turning on his heel and leaving the confused boy in his wake, deciding that crop records could wait just a few more hours.

* * *

“_Igraine?” Uther calls out, as he wanders into the library._

_His future wife looks up from where a book was laid out before her and some strange young girl, dressed as a lady in waiting, and looking furthest from the part._

“_Uther,” she says, smiling. “How are you?”_

“_Well,” he says, carefully eyeing the young girl. “Who is this?”_

“_My new lady in waiting,” Igraine says, and Uther cut her off with,_

“_A commoner?”_

“_Ex-slave, to be exact,” she says, and gives Uther a big, wide grin, again. According to her, his ban on slavery and laws concerning treatment of indentured servants were what made her fall in love with him._

_Win-win for him, really._

“_So you…made her a lady in waiting?” Uther asks. “She is obviously far from nobility-”_

“_She deserves it,” Igraine says. “And she has power that far outmatches anything nobility can dream of.”_

“_Oh?”_

_Igraine gives the girl an encouraging smile, who up until now has ducked her head with a steady blush as they talked about her. Her eyes widen at whatever Igraine’s silent suggestion, but with a slight squeak, she nods._

_The windows close themselves, spontaneously, and candles all light at once, while the books and papers around the room organize themselves alarmingly neatly on the shelves and tables around them, and all the while, the girl’s eyes go from blue to a terrifying and hypnotic black._

“_Oh,” Uther says, looking about the room as the candle-flames disappear, the windows reopen, and the last of the papers fly to their spots on the shelves._

“_Yes, oh,” Igraine says, smiling at the girl fondly. “She’s learning how to read. Soon, she can master anything in the magic books with absolute ease.”_

“_Sounds like all is well,” Uther says, having by now forgotten what he came here for to begin with._

“_Thank you, milady,” the girl says, shyly, immediately looking down again, blush growing as Igraine strokes her face, fondness in both their smiles._

“_Nothing to thank, my dear,” Igraine says, a soft smile on her face. “You will one day be a powerful sorceress, Nimueh – I can feel it.”_

* * *

It doesn’t stop with just the servant reading.

He was outside the armory, mostly focusing on the two knives in his hand, but shifted focus when he hears the sound of laughter from inside.

Unguarded, un-arrogant, simple, joyous laughter.

He hasn’t heard that from Arthur in _years_.

“Do that again,” Arthur said, still laughing, sounding almost like a child, and Uther feels a moment of nostalgia for when he showed Arthur how to shoot a crossbow from behind his back. He and Arthur had spent all day on learning that little trick, for no reason than because it was amusing and, with almost no true usefulness in it.

There is a sound of scraping metal, and Uther couldn’t even begin to guess what that servant – what the _hell_ was his name again? – was doing, but Arthur was laughing again, and Uther was yet again reminded of Arthur’s childhood.

And…his own past.

“C’mon, Merlin, surely you can go higher than _that_!” Arthur said.

Uther marveled at the ability of someone – _any_one – being able to bring out that pure joy in Arthur. It has been years, a decade, since he has been able to do that, himself, and despite the king in him knowing he should find out and curb the source of this, the father in him can only smile, and want to award a title and estate to the servant for the laughter ringing in his ears.

There unintelligible muttering, and more scraping, and more laughter from both boys, before suddenly, the scraping sounds stop, and another sound takes over.

The sounds of lips crashing together, mouths moaning into each other, and the sound of something Uther _really_ did not need to walk into – especially not with his own son. (And even more especially after that particular incident of walking in on Arthur and Sir Kay’s ‘experimentation’ when Arthur was much younger – he _definitely_ had not needed to walk in on that).

Turning on his heel and smiling to himself, he found himself caught between happy for Arthur, and the need to send that servant away to protect Arthur’s heart in the long run.

Such were the woes of royalty.

* * *

_Uther blinks as he steps into the room. Nimueh is standing on a tailor’s stool, her hands fidgeting but otherwise still, as Igraine sews something into the back of her old dress that Nimueh is now wearing._

_Except Igraine is much taller than Nimueh – and the dress is being fitted._

“_What the hell…?”_

_Nimueh blushed, while Igraine smiled. “I wanted to give her some better clothes.”_

“_My other clothes are just fine,” Nimueh says, rather indignantly._

“_Pft!” Igraine says. “They were atrocious. Half those rags you got from your time in slavery! I will not allow such a powerful friend like you wander around in rags!”_

_Nimueh’s blush grows, and she mutters, “They weren’t rags…”_

_Uther shakes his head, suppressing laughter. “Just let her. I don’t think she got too many dolls as a child, and now she’s making up for it.”_

_Nimueh snorts in her failed attempt to suppress laughter, while Igraine stands back and glares._

“_You’re _next_, Uther Pendragon!”_

“_I’m a king, now, remember?” Uther says, jutting his chin up and leaning on the door. “You can’t order me around.”_

“_Ah, king though you may be, you are still my husband, which means I have every right to order you around!”_

“_There’s nothing you can do to make me,” Uther says, calmly, with a gentle smile._

“_I suppose not…Nimueh, dear, how long do you think Uther can last without making love to me?”_

_Uther and Nimueh’s eyes widen as he cries out, “Igraine!”_

_Igraine grins. “Women generally can last longer, I’ll have you know.”_

_Nimueh is blushing furiously, now, fidgeting on the stool. “Can I get off, now?”_

“_No,” Igraine says sternly. “We have quite a few more dresses to go.”_

“_I thought you said I just needed a few?”_

“_It is a few,” Igraine says. “Just a few feast dresses, a nice ceremonial dress, a set of dinner dresses, a luncheon dresses-”_

“_That’s a few?!” Nimueh cries out, and Uther takes one look at her face can’t help it: he laughs. Igraine smiles, and Nimueh scowls, good naturedly, but continues to fidget, while Uther can only shake his head. Igraine and her vastly inappropriate love of clothing. Uther would stake his crown that she would have been a seamstress if she had her way._

_Most days, she usually did end up making her own clothing, anyway._

_Shaking his head, he said, “I suppose this would end up being my answer about whether you will both be attending the Beltane feast tonight?”_

“_I should hope so,” Igraine said. “She will be sitting right beside me.”_

“_I _what_?!” Nimueh yelps, turning again, only turning back to her original position with a slap on her rear from Igraine._

“_You are no longer to be just my maid servant – you will be my lady in waiting, and you are going to be Court Sorcerer, one day. Get used to it.”_

_Nimueh whimpers in fear, and Uther laughed again. Servants, these days, were so amusing…_

* * *

The next time he really notices the servant – Merlin, that’s his name – is during a feast celebrating Arthur winning another tournament. Arthur had apparently seen fit to give Merlin a new livery, which was less humiliating for Merlin, but really drew far more attention, making the boy fidget quite amusingly. The breeches were will fitted, tunic swathing his shoulders, tabard loose and revealing. The boy actually looked quite good. Nice change.

And, really, the fidgeting was still amusing.

That, and considering the particular fit of the clothes, and the leers in Arthur’s and many nobles’ eyes made, it all almost as entertaining as the dancers had been.

Rolling his eyes to himself, he happily turned a blind eye as Merlin filled Arthur’s goblet, before whispering furiously in Arthur’s ear. With a bit of surreptitious strain, he could hear them.

“…feel ridiculous!”

“You _are_ ridiculous, Merlin. It’s your fault for tearing the old livery.”

“_You_ tore it, you bloody prat, because _someone_ couldn’t wait and had to go at it in the armory and _someone_ was too impatient to let me get our clothes off, myself-”

“You love me tearing them off and you know it,” Arthur said, and Uther remembers how much Igraine used to love going through the trouble of undressing Uther, herself. He was never quite sure how she could make the simple act of undressing so torturously erotic. “Besides, you can mend them with a snap of your fingers. Literally.”

…what the hell did _that_ mean?

“Is that what this is? You want to see my eyes go gold, so you give me more to do?”

…gold? Forget the snapping, what did _that_ mean?

“Do you have any idea how you look when they do?” Arthur asked, cheekily.

Merlin laughed lowly, leaning in to Arthur’s ear, and Arthur gets a flushed look on his face Uther remembers all too well from his own youth. He can’t hear what they are saying, anymore, but Morgana can, and she has a rather devious smirk on her face from it, and gives her maidservant a look similar to those that many nobles are giving Merlin’s rear, and guessing fairly well just what Merlin is murmuring into Arthur’s ear, Uther fought the urge to roll his eyes at the follies of youth.

If only he could’ve claimed to have done better in his own youth.

Arthur pointed out someone to Merlin, the visiting Lord Aldwyn, dancing on the floor, who lost early in the tournament but is still quite arrogant, and Arthur seemed to mutter some kind of request to Merlin.

Merlin ducked his head, muttered something else which doesn’t seem to be to anyone in particular…

And then suddenly, Lord Aldwyn tripped over himself, staring down at his boots in shock as he fell over, taking the Lady he was dancing with down with him, both of them landing on the floor.

The lady got up indignantly, while Aldwyn spluttered about, but it was too late, and she was off in a huff, while the entire court pretended to not be laughing.

But Uther was focused on Merlin, who looked smugly at Arthur, who’s eyes were locked on Merlin’s, a lustful gaze which reminds Uther far too much of Igraine.

Except that look wasn’t always reserved for Uther. The one other person who Igraine used to direct it to…

…was Nimueh.

And suddenly, Arthur’s manservant has Uther’s full attention.

Which, of course, the witless idiot didn’t even know.

* * *

_Uther sighs in relief as his breeches were finally pulled away, but it is short lived as Igraine pushes him back, so he is sprawled across the bed, before her mischievously sensuous fingers are on his legs, his hips, his thighs, but damnit, never his cock!_

“_I…I…Igraine!” Uther gasps out. “Please-”_

“_Sh!” Igraine says, evil smirk on her face._ _“My game, my rules.”_

_Uther swallows and nods, his head falling back as her thumb rubs over the tip, and the back of her nails around the head, before her tongue is in his navel, traveling up, her hands now busy holding _his_ down._

“_Mmm…” Igraine moans out, the sound going down his spine and straight to his warm, warm, _hot_ groin, and damnit, she knows it! “I wish I could have shown you the way you looked out in the practice field, today. You looked magnificent.”_

“_Some…someone…is excited,” he gasps, not quite able to form coherent thought with her doing_ that_ with her hand, her breasts on his thighs, and it was just his wrist her hands were on, but bloody hell-_

_She chuckles a bit sadistically, and Uther’s hips buck as she finally, _finally_ takes him into her mouth._

“_Oh, God…” he cries out._

“_Sorry, just me,” she says, cheekily. And he almost huffs in amusement at that (because kings _never_ snorted), but it comes out as a strangled moan, and-_

_The door opens._

“_Oh!”_

_Uther’s eyes widen in shock at Igraine’s cry around his dick, and he turns his head to see who was interrupting, who could possibly…_

_Nimueh is blushing furiously, but with a sad look on her face at Igraine, and Uther hates it as Igraine pulls her mouth off of him to sigh._

“_I-I-I’m sorry, milady,” Nimueh says, for some odd reason glaring at Uther. He knows that Igraine was quite close to Nimueh, but surely…?_

“_Leave,” he commands coldly, acting like he _wasn’t_ naked and with a slick, wet hard-on standing to attention._

_The girl starts to nod, and Igraine said, “Oh, don’t be such an arse.”_

“_What, do you want her to stay?” Uther grinds out._

_And Igraine smirks, and he already regretted his words as she said, “Yes.”_

_Nimueh’s eyes widen, and she says, “There’s no need, milady, I know you and your husband-”_

“_My husband?_ _Really? Come, now, Nimueh…” Igraine pats the bed beside them, and Uther slams his head back, what the hell was she thinking, inviting the up and coming court sorcerer into their bed with them, and with them _both_, because really…_

“_Uther?”_ _Igraine says. “You agree with me, don’t you?”_

_He gives Nimueh a look that said anything but, willing her to leave…except it backfires._

_Severely._

_With a hint of challenge in her eyes, she raises her hand and snaps her fingers, and suddenly, the girl is just as naked as the royals in the bed._

_And then she looks at Igraine, and she’s just Nimueh, again, and slightly unsure of herself._

_Smiling, Igraine says simply, “Come here,” and promptly goes back to sucking Uther._

_It’s a struggle, but Uther manages to keep his eyes on the girl as she approaches, even with everything Igraine is doing to him. Nimueh clambers onto the bed, and it feels so _wrong_, but Uther can’t muster up the energy to try and kick her back out again, as Igraine writhes, and laps at his cock like it’s some obscene treat, before she disengages and turns to Nimueh._

“_Would you like to try?”_

_And Uther’s eyes widen in shock, and so do Nimueh’s. Well, at least they can agree on one thing._

“_Igraine!” they both yelp, and Uther gives her a strange look for being so familiar with the Queen, but Igraine, herself, is laughing._

“_Oh, you two,” she says, shaking her head, as if their reactions were the antics of two particularly playful children. With a sideways smile at them, she puts her hand on the back of Uther’s neck and directs him to follow her as she lies back, using her other hand to beckon Nimueh over, those slender fingers stroking up and down Nimueh’s body as she nears._

_She turns to Uther, and guides his hips to hers, saying, “Fuck me,” and Uther complies, just as she turns her head back to Nimueh, pulls her close, and kisses her strongly, pulling their bodies flush together where the logistics allow it._

_And watching the two kiss so passionately, their lips locked in a dance Uther can see but cannot understand, makes Uther change the angle of his hips, work harder, but hitting that spot inside Igraine he knows drives her insane._

_And it works – she screams into Nimueh’s mouth, moaning in ecstasy, and Nimueh is glaring at the smirking Uther, before her fingers went up Igraine’s sides, and they are massaging, stroking, groping, in some strange pattern Uther can’t see, which makes Igraine hiss out in pleasure._

_Not to be out done, he slides his fingers down the crease where Igraine’s leg and body meet, still pounding away, braced on one arm, and Nimueh runs her fingers between Igraine’s breasts, her own hips moving to her mistress’s cries, and Uther has to bite his lip against screaming as he reaches his climax, but does not stop pounding, not for his own satisfaction, nor for Nimueh’s moans as she reaches a bizarre release just from pleasuring Igraine, alone, and he does not stop until Igraine has peaked and passed, and her own hips have stilled with her climax._

_Nimueh stretches out languidly by Igraine’s side, his wife’s hand brushing over the girl’s hips, while Uther collapses on the other side._

_Igraine is smiling at them with an amused look in her eyes, her voice thick and lazy as she speaks: “I should have done this much sooner. You two are so adorable when you get competitive like this.”_

_Uther and Nimueh both give her rather incredulous looks, before_ _glaring at each other._

_It’s Nimueh’s fault he’s being called adorable._

_Then Nimueh blushes as Igraine’s hand explores her rear, right in Uther’s full view, before the sorceress over the mess of sweat and other fluids on their bodies. “_Áthierre._”_

_He feels his body tingle, and then he is fresh and dry again, and Igraine smiles as Nimueh cleans them off, before shutting her eyes and settling into the pillow._

“_Go to sleep, both of you.”_

_And Uther wraps an arm around Igraine as they settle in, while Nimueh does much the same, her and Uther’s arms brushing and almost overlapping._

_Igraine opens her eyes long enough to roll them at the two sharing her bed, before shutting them again, this time falling asleep for _ _sure._

_Ironically enough, despite Nimueh’s presence, Uther is not far behind._

* * *

A few days later, and Uther was caught in a web of sorcery again. The council meeting ended, including the witch’s sentence, but Arthur has anger and rebellion in his eyes.

Uther stayed behind with his son.

“She’s just a child!” Arthur yelled, as soon as the hall doors closed behind the last councilor.

“She was using _magic_,” Uther said, not bothering to hide the venom in his voice, studying Arthur’s reaction to the word.

Nothing.

He wasn’t entirely sure what that meant.

“For god’s sake, she was trying to heal a bloody _puppy_, certainly nothing evil about it!”

“Nothing evil _yet_,” Uther said, coldly. “But that power goes to sorcerer’s heads. The magic may be harmless, now, but it does _nothing_ but corrupt. Next she starts controlling the puppy to ‘play’ with her, then _make_ it attack people who happen to make her angry, then she realizes she can control _them_ – and with _magic_, it won’t occur to her to stop, either!”

“How do you know?” Arthur asked venomously. “You’ve _killed_ all the sorcerers in Camelot before being able to truly understand them!”

_I understood Nimueh. I saw how she changed, how magic changes everybody. What do you know?_

Except part of him wonders, and might already know the answer.

“You were not-”

“I know I was not here!” Arthur said, coldly. “When sorcerers were overrunning the land and trying to destroy Camelot, but _today_-”

“Today, every time we run into one, they are trying to kill one of us or destroy our kingdom!”

“Of _course_ they are!” Arthur said. “You have been persecuting them for decades-”

“Are you saying that this is all _my_ fault?”

“Yes,” Arthur hissed. “I am, because it is. You killed a man and tried to kill a little boy for buying some bloody _herbs_ in a market!”

“They were Druids-”

“Who were seeking supplies and nothing else-”

“And you would rather I let members of the people trying to _destroy_ my kingdom run rampant?” Uther yelled, slamming his hand on the table.

“I would rather innocent people not _die_! And yet you insist on killing this child-”

“Who is innocent now, but _will not_ remain that way!” Uther said. “Would you rather I kill her after _she_ kills someone innocent?”

“You don’t know she will!” Arthur said. “For all you know – and hell, considering that bloody puppy, most likely – she could become a healer, or a crop magician, or-”

“A _sorceress_ bent upon destroying the kingdom-”

“She will be because of you trying to kill her!” Arthur said. “A few sorcerers just a few decades ago may have wanted to bring down Camelot, but certainly not all, and _you_ made it worse!”

“Have you ever met a sorcerer?” Uther asked, coldly. “Man to man?”

“No,” Arthur admits, just as coldly, even as Uther can see his eyes say _yes_. “Have you? Met one that wasn’t on trial? One that you weren’t about to kill?”

Uther fights down the urge to take his hand to Arthur’s cheek, and he wonders if Arthur can see the _yes_ in his eyes, and says, “Leave, now.”

Arthur does so, and Uther can see the way Arthur critically eyes the guards, and the light outside, and how Merlin is at his side when Arthur is leaving, having waited just outside the doors, and he sees a slight panic in Merlin’s eyes as he and Arthur whisper to each other urgently.

At this moment, he does not see what he once looked for in the boy. Arthur is making a summoning motion of out Uther’s line of sight, and the servant follows, and the secretive way they glance at each other make Uther rather suspicious.

He does not feel glad that the witch he is killing is a child, young enough that her chest was still flat and her hair in braids by her father, but he knows this is necessary, feels it.

He remembered Nimueh. He didn’t know her at that age – considering her background, he rather doubted anyone did, really and truly – but he remembers her in their youth, and how young she still looked when he saw her last – how hadn’t she aged? – and thinks, and wishes, that what he had seen were real, the innocence he once knew about her.

What Uther felt in his bones at the thought of magic, he already knew Arthur did not feel it, nor Morgana, dear Morgana. He remembered Morgana saving the little Druid boy, how he could hear her hidden words when she ‘apologized’ to him the next day, how none of them were surprised at the little boys’ second escape.

That night, he stayed in his chambers, but did not sleep. He doubted he was the only one.

The next day, he feigned surprise when the little girl is discovered missing. Arthur listlessly sent the guards to search for her. Morgana’s maidservant was the one helping Arthur for the day, while Morgana herself, and Merlin, were nowhere to be seen.

* * *

“_Gaius!” Uther says in relief as he closes the door to the physician’s chambers behind him. “Igraine’s gone mad!”_

“_Now what?”_ _Gaius asks, humoring his lord, but not bothering to look up from his potion._ _Namely because Igraine went mad pretty much every other week._

“_I should have foreseen this,” Uther says, with a moan, sliding into a bench by Gaius’s work table. “What was I thinking, a tailor’s fair while she was here? She must’ve bought a quarter of the entire market, herself. She’s turned the castle seamstresses into an army!”_

“_Is that so?” Gaius asks, distractedly. Uther knows_ _Gaius didn’t really hear him, and if he were to ask his friend, the man would not be able to tell Uther what he just said. But it’s nice to release his tension on _someone_._

“_She just tried to get _me_ to wear some ridiculous feasting robes, all covered in sigils, supposedly for good luck, and how the hell does she expect me to wear it? If I had stayed, it would have taken two servants just to don in the first place! Not to mention how inconvenient it-”_

_KNOCK-KNOCK_

_Uther’s eyes widen, and again without looking up, Gaius points_ _to the bedchambers he never uses unless Uther makes him, and Uther hides behind the door without shame, as Gaius calls, “Yes?”_

_The door immediately opens, and closes shut again, and Gaius gives an exasperated sigh, as Uther hears Nimueh’s voice yelp, “Hide me!”_

“_Igraine?”_

“_You have no idea how Igraine has gone- yes. How did you know?”_

“_Because the King of Camelot is currently hiding in my bedchambers,” Gaius says with an amused but frustrated sigh, as if putting up with two small children._

“_Gaius!” Uther says in mock-betrayal, as he steps out, before looking at Nimueh, who has managed to slip into one of her more preferred, simple dresses, but looking harried for it._

“_The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Gaius says simply. “And before you two ask, I have no intention of sleeping, today, so while Igraine invades the castle’s textile stores, you two may hide in here.”_

_Nimueh looks just as relieved as Uther feels, and with a grateful tone, says, “Thank you, Gaius.”_

_With that, she quickly slips into the small bedchambers, as well, and Uther closes the door, halfway, saying, “I can’t believe I’m hiding from my own wife.”_

“_Your own _terrifying_ wife,” Nimueh says, flicking her wrist a few times, the room tidying itself, the bed remaking itself, and much of the dust clearing itself out from the room and out the window that was fluttering in the still air, providing the slightest of breezes in the midspring warmth. “She tried to make me wear a dress with beads and flowers on it!”_

“_Did it look nice?” Uther asks, amused._

“_Well, yes, but still – I don’t know how you royals put up with it, all the uncomfortable clothing.”_

_Uther rolls his eyes, and closes the door all the way upon hearing another knock on the physician’s door, and lies on the bed as Nimueh stands by the window, looking out over the city._

“_Aren’t you supposed to be meeting with the new king of Mercia? Negotiating with the hostile Druids and all that?” Nimueh asks, conversationally, after a few moments of comfortable silence, and Uther ponders just when things with Nimueh became this comfortable._

“_He is out hunting,” he says. “I had initially stayed behind to spend some time with Igraine, but that was before I knew she had gone mad.”_

“_How on earth could you have missed it?”_

“_Because I have spent the last three days straight trying to keep from strangling that idiot Bayard. Taxes your system to deny yourself for that long, you know,” Uther says._

_Nimueh laughs, and turns from the window and comes to sit on the edge of Gaius’s bed, laying back across his hips, until her head is on his chest, her shoulders draping off his stomach, as he moves to make room for her on the bed._

_There are a bunch of dried flowers on the window sill, and Nimueh holds her hand out to them and says, “_Frícath ac me._”_

_As the flowers start drifting and twirling in lazy circles above them, Uther asks, “What does it mean? That spell?”_

“_Dance for me,” Nimueh says._

_Uther laughed, slightly, and felt Nimueh’s responding mirth against his own stomach. “Wonderful,” he says. “Maybe you can get Igraine’s dresses to dance for her, one day.”_

“_I’ll stick with these for now, Uther.”_

_And the flowers dance._


	2. Part 1 of 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ **The Quality of Mercy Part 2 of 4** _

_ **The Quality of Mercy Part 2 of 4** _

**A/N: Something I thought I should clear up - these _are not chapters_ of a fic - they are parts of a massive one-shot. It's split into four parts due to size, and across four days because formatting on LJ is a bitch and I've got a castle-load of homework due soon.**

* * *

Uther walked by the guards, turned the corner, and went down the hall with confidence and ease. He owned this castle – and no one here ever forgot it.

He stopped outside Morgana’s door, and shifted his posture so if he heard footsteps, it would look as if he were about to knock on her door.

Then he listened.

“…to the stairs,” he heard Merlin say. “The guard’s sword got her leg, and they didn’t attend to it.”

He heard a whimper.

“Hush, Mary,” Morgana said, soothingly, and Uther found it rather ironic that someone so unnatural could have a name so holy. “Now, hold still…”

“This is a bit more advanced than what you did with the puppy,” he heard Merlin say.

Some silence, some shuffling, and then, “_Thurhhaele!_”

That Tongue, that language, sounds all too familiar, even in Merlin’s voice.

There seemed to be some sounds, like the wind in rain, before Morgana gasped in delight, and there was the sound of a little girl squeaking at what she saw.

“There,” Merlin said, gently, in a tone reminiscent of what Gaius would use to treat children. “Leg’s all better now. Want to try with your hand?”

A long pause, then the little girl’s voice came through with, “What was that spell again?”

“Thurh-hae-le,” Merlin enunciates for her.

“Thurhhaele,” the girl said, and it was a little less secure, but with just as much determination, before she gasped and cried out, “It worked!”

“Shh!” Morgana hushed her. “The guards are patrolling the castle. Arthur can only keep them from searching my rooms until noon – you two will have to be gone, by then.”

“We will be,” Merlin said, assuring her. “We’ll find her father, and get them both to the Druids. The family that took Mordred in should be happy to help her.”

“Who?” The little girl asked.

She certainly talked more than most sorcerers on the run. Then again, she was barely a decade old.

“A Druid boy we helped save a long time ago,” Morgana said. Was this the boy he’s caught her helping? Or were there more?

“Will I get to come back?” the little girl asked. “Because all my friends-”

“Not for a long time. I’m sorry,” Morgana said.

“When?”

“When Prince Arthur is king,” Merlin said, and Uther almost couldn’t hear it, for how soft it is. “He will bring magic back where it belongs.”

“Oh,” the little girl said. “Will that be a long time?”

“Yes,” Merlin said, while Morgana said, “I don’t know.”

Uther wondered what Morgana meant by that.

“Here,” Merlin said. “I’ll show you another spell.”

“You know a lot of spells,” the little girl said.

Laughter from the two adults. He knew he should be walking in there.

“_Frícath ac me!_”

His blood froze at those words – he remembered those words, all too well, and visions of floating flowers and twirling dresses danced before his eyes.

He wondered what danced in Morgana’s rooms, now.

There was clapping, the smooth and elegant clapping from Morgana, and carefree and delighted from the little girl. A witch who was on the run. Who Uther should be calling out, right now, letting them know he knew they were in there, because he could get to them (has to, somehow), despite the door being locked-

The little girl laughs.

Now all he can see is Arthur, maybe that little girl’s age, laughing in delight as he and Uther practice shooting crossbows behind their back. They have the same color hair and eyes, the girl and Arthur, and Uther ponders having the little girl’s hair dyed before her execution.

If he could just get his blasted mouth to move and call them out.

He doesn’t, and just listened as Morgana said, “Okay, Merlin these bracelets are probably worth more than a year of your salary – put them down.”

“_Setlath_,” Merlin said, an inherent windy-whisper in those words through his voice, and a few clinks of what must be his ward’s jewelry.

Morgana sighed in relief, just as Uther heard footsteps from around the corner, and immediately knocked, accusations on his tongue.

And with them, he shoved away why he had waited until now to knock.

There was the sound of a moving curtain, a whispered, “_Dunnath,_” and then Morgana yelled, “Arthur, if you’re here to make a mess of my chambers again-”

“He’s not,” Uther called out, just as two guards came around the corner.

A gasp, and then Morgana opened the door, pleasant, easily, and if Uther hadn’t just heard what he heard, he would never have suspected her of fostering a fugitive.

“I saw your maidservant with Arthur and noted your absence, this morning.”

“Oh,” she said, indicating towards a few herbs and elixirs on her vanity table. “I felt ill after a bad nightmare, last night, and Merlin stayed with me at the time, so I lent Guinevere to Arthur.”

_And where does fostering two illegal sorcerers come into your story?_

“I just wanted to make sure you were all right,” he said, stepping into the room. Neither Merlin nor the witch were anywhere to be seen. “Especially with a sorcerer on the loose.”

“Yes, because I am really going to be assaulted by a little girl who was arrested for healing a _puppy_.”

She’d become more open in her criticism, as of late.

Uther looked around, and Morgana sighed. “You’re going to search my rooms?”

“Considering the incident with the Druid boy, excuse me if I do not trust you.”

A defiant look in her eyes, Morgana gestured grandly around her chambers. “I will not pretend to be disappointed at the little girl’s disappearance – hopefully, she is long gone, by now – but I can assure, this time, I had nothing to do with her escape.”

He fought the urge to snort, and looked around her room, focusing on the side where he had just heard their voices coming from.

_Nothing._

Not a trace.

Hm…invisibility spell? He had been under many, in his own time, between Gaius and Nimueh.

He kept his eyes on there long enough, then turned back to Morgana, who was also staring at that spot with worry in her eyes, before turning to Uther, her face defiant again.

“Well?” she asked. “As you can see, no children, though if she were to come here-”

“Then you can guarantee yourself a public flogging if you foster her,” Uther said, coldly.

He knew they were here.

He _knew_ it. Heard it, felt it, could _see_ it in his ward’s eyes, his adopted daughter’s eyes.

And yet, he turned on his heel and walked out the door.

Outside, he waited a moment, and kept walking once he heard her sigh of relief.

He hated himself for it.

* * *

“…_cannot!” Nimueh hisses._

“_Nimueh, please – I would give my life for this kingdom,” Igraine says in an equally low voice, and Uther leans in closer, around the corridor corner, to listen._ _“And for my child.”_

…_child?_

_As he wonders at the possibility of a bastard child he did not know about, Nimueh says, “You can’t die for a child that is not born, yet!”_

_So, no bastard child, then._

“_I do so for my kingdom,” Igraine says. And then, Uther needs to know more._

“_Do what for my kingdom?” Uther asks as he walks into his chambers._

“_We are discussing sacrifices of royalty,” Igraine says, easily._

_The look on Nimueh’s face says that Igraine is prepared to make one too big for him and the sorceress to handle._

“_Anything in particular?” he asks, sitting on his bed, holding up his arms as Nimueh’s magic had the shirt pulling itself off his body in an instant._

“_Children, to be exact,” Igraine says. “What we __may__ have to do, soon, for me to conceive.”_

“_So you truly are barren?” Uther asks. Nimueh winces at his blunt word choice. Igraine sighs and nods._

“_Between Nimueh and Gaius, any other women would’ve been begotten a child a dozen times over, by now. I have asked Nimueh to look into deeper magics for our heir.”_

“_And?” he presses, looking at Nimueh, who was making her fingers dance in the air, carefully placing away Igraine’s clothes – few as they were, as Igraine mostly likes to dress everyone else up, her own body just another doll for her. He bites back a smile at watching Nimueh work like this, knowing the sorceress could snap her fingers and the clothes would be righted in an instant._

“_I cannot,” Nimueh says, simply. “This is deep magic – I would have to go to someone of the Old Religion, myself. Igraine is not meant to give life, and if she were to, another life would have to be sacrificed. Both to keep the balance in the world, and as a price.”_

“_And what would the exact price be for an heir, in this case?” Uther asks, narrowing his eyes._

_Nimueh swallowed, and said, “A life.”_

_She looks at Igraine._

_Igraine raises a defiant eyebrow._

_Uther looks away._

* * *

A week later, Uther declared the search for the girl pointless, as she was apparently long gone, and Camelot’s resources were needed elsewhere.

He knew she was long gone when Arthur looked well rested again, and there are glances of relief between his children and their servants.

“The question is who helped her,” Uther said, one day in the council hall, Arthur still in his seat, Merlin pouring them both wine. “We had her father under guard – and she was not even ten.”

Arthur just gave him a “don’t ask me” look, the royal equivalent of a shrug, and Uther nodded in resignation, as he turned away as Merlin poured Arthur some more wine.

He held up the goblet as if in contemplation, and his face went blank as they shared an amused look between them. Keeping to this form, he said, “Next time, we will need a firmer guard around the dungeons if we find a sorcerer. We _will_ kill them.”

Now their looks were somber. Arthur gave Merlin a worried, over protective look, and the boy just rolled his eyes and smiled reassuringly.

Uther is fairly sure he knew what just happened between them.

* * *

“_You are as willing to sacrifice her as I am,” Nimueh says, one night. Igraine is already asleep, and he and Nimueh are stretched out by the fire, Nimueh making shapes with the flames, writing a story that he can only understand out of the corner of his eye, in the back of his mind. The story of a Queen too loved to be forgone just yet._

_He sees dresses and flowers intermingled between dragons and swords. A circlet of flaming leaves around a knife of fire._

“_Camelot comes first,” Uther says. “Royalty is not a privilege, but a duty, and a curse within it. Igraine knows that Camelot needs an heir more than it needs a queen.”_

_Nimueh is glaring at him. “And the laws of succession?”_

“_No matter how clear the lines may be, if it is not a direct heir, there will be conflict. Camelot has just suffered from a war by magic, a war of succession, and a civil war by the lords, themselves. She cannot take any more, not in this generation’s lifetime. She deserves more.”_

“_And Igraine?” Nimueh asks, tilting her head to rest on Uther’s thigh, who strokes her hair absently._

_His throat tightens, as he sees his sleeping wife’s reflection in one of the many mirrors throughout the room._

“_Camelot comes first in my duty,” he says. “And Igraine comes first in my heart.”_

“_So does duty trump the heart? Or does your heart trump duty?” Nimueh asks._

_Staring back into the flames, Uther says, “I don’t know.”_

* * *

The next time the servant has his attention, it was the next attempt on Arthur’s life.

During the feast, there was a terrifying scream, inhuman and unnatural, coming from outside. Arthur and his knights ran out immediately, swords already drawn, only to see a harpy flying above the courtyard, the citizens running, terrified, from its clutches.

“Form!” Uther yelled at his knights, his own sword drawn, pulling Arthur back from the front line (he was even stupider than his servant, considering how often he risked his life), all of them keeping a wary eye on the creature flying above them.

Arthur gave Uther a hard stare, before whirling on his feet and slipping off to the side, a semi-strategic move.

As the rest of the knights surged forward on the harpy’s downward sweep, he saw Arthur advance to the other side of the courtyard.

Merlin was with him.

Watching with a wary eye, Uther directed the knights to split up, and take the harpy from two sides the next time it swept down.

“…and aim for the neck,” Uther finished it off with.

Arthur and Merlin were both eyeing the harpy, and Arthur was holding the sword in a strange grip, before suddenly taking a running jump at one of the statues, and climbing up it.

“What the hell…?” Uther asked. Before any of the knights could look and try and explain, the harpy swooped down again, and they got ready, a few of them having already managed to get their hands on spears, and between them-

Arthur jumped from the top of the statue, straight onto the creature’s back.

They all stared in shock as the monster screeched, jerking midflight, before Arthur kicked, with aim in his eyes, at a spot on the thing’s spine, and it dropped to only a horse’s height above the stone floor of the courtyard, before Arthur thrust his sword into the back of the thing’s neck, jumping off and rolling on the hard ground as he did so.

From the sword spread blue flames, and the creature screamed in midair, before finally falling to the ground, writhing, jerking, then falling still, and the flames became normal ones.

Uther turned his head.

Merlin’s eyes were glowing molten gold as he stared at the sword in the harpy.

Arthur was smiling at Merlin, and when Merlin’s eyes returned to blue, and everyone else was focused on the harpy, Arthur stepped forward, and stole a quick kiss from the boy (not that they had ever been particularly subtle or discreet, before, and it certainly wasn’t secret), before he, too, joined the knights.

“How did you _do_ that?” Kay asked, wide-eyed.

“Merlin knew a thing or two about harpies from all of Gaius’s books,” Arthur said, offhandedly, as the boy came up.

_And the spells to go with it._

“You can read?” Kay asked Merlin, dubiously.

Merlin nodded and scampered back into the castle before anyone could ask any more, and Arthur had all his focus on the harpy, where did it come from, were there more?

Uther spared one last glance for Merlin’s retreating back, before he, too, turned away.

No matter how hard he focused on the harpy, all he saw were flashing gold eyes.

* * *

“_Both of you!” Igraine yelps. “Stop this madness, __at__ once.”_

_Uther wonders how it is he can command armies and the rowdiest of knights among them, and the best friend beside him can practically move mountains with a flick of a finger, and yet this small, petite woman before them both can make them blush like children with such absolute ease._

“_We are just trying to look out for you,” Uther says, sitting down on the edge of the bed carefully, but complying to her wish and pulling back the trays._

“_Both of you,” Nimueh adds to Igraine, sitting beside Uther._

_Igraine rolls her eyes and stands from her spot on the bed, coming to stand before them both, between them, and crossing her hands in front of her barely-bulging-belly._

“_Just because I am with child does _not_ make me an invalid!” she yelps, before walking over to the small feast laid out on the table. “And I have not even been with child for long! It will be some time yet before I need my husband and lover to feed me in my bed! I will sit and eat at the table like a civilized human being as long as I am able, damnit, and I _will_ not do otherwise because you two are over protective plonkers who insist on treating me like I’m a robin’s egg!”_

_As she continues ranting and raving in between eating prodigious amounts of food, Uther and Nimueh look at each other and flush, but grin._

“_How long do you think this one will this one last?” Uther asks her, quietly, out of the corner of his mouth without Igraine noticing. She was almost yelling by this point._

_Nimueh, having long since perfected the art of speaking without moving her lips under her mistress’s tutelage, responds in kind with, “I give it until she finishes the roast duck.”_

_It takes all his instinct and training as king to keep himself from grinning._

_Nimueh isn’t too wrong – after having eaten quite a bit, Igraine calms down, until she rests idly in her chair before the fire, silent, and Nimueh, the brave soul, gets up and offers an arm to Igraine._

“_Bed, milady?” she asks. “It will do you and the child some good.”_

_Igraine nods, a soft, dopey smile on her face as she says, “Yes, Nimueh, thank you – a nap does sound lovely, right about now.”_

_As they lay down Igraine to rest, King and Sorceress look up at each other and share an amused grin as they tuck their Queen in._

“_I saw that,” Igraine says._

_And the two roll their eyes._

* * *

Uther, Arthur, and the knights were out searching through the forests to make sure there aren’t more harpies causing trouble.

A few of them have brought along their servants, and with an offhanded comment from Uther – “If he knows enough about harpies for you to kill it in one blow, he might as well be useful for the rest of us.” – and Merlin was with them, as well, though it didn’t really take much to get Arthur to bring Merlin along.

And Merlin _was_ surprisingly useful. His simple words of their preferred homes – “Caves, with lots of trees and forests nearby,” – proved useful thus far, enabling them to find two so far, though thankfully, that seemed to be it.

It was not unusual for Uther to hold his formality and guard while out with his knights like this, and he used this to his advantage, keeping his distance as he kept his eye on Arthur and Merlin.

During the fights with the harpies, Arthur always kept Merlin well away, physically, from the harpies, but always kept Merlin in sight of them – and away from everyone else.

Every time, when both boys were convinced no one was looking, and that everyone was focused on the harpies, Merlin’s eyes would turn gold in time with the blue flames erupting from whatever weapon Arthur and the knights managed to land on all the right places.

Afterwards, resting, Arthur and Merlin took their own space behind a tree, and really, considering how _in_discrete they are, no one was particularly surprised. Uther, completely uninjured (at least his knights know not to risk the life of royalty, if not his son), volunteered to walk a basic patrol while the others took care of their injuries.

Merlin healed Arthur with magic. The boy’s eyes turned gold, again, and he was saying something to himself, and what little Uther could hear sounded almost _painfully_ familiar.

Arthur smiled as some of the wounds were healed, but not all – and when Merlin bandages up his prince, he might as well have not been healed at all.

Swallowing, Uther turned away, and went back to patrol.

* * *

“_How on earth did you manage to fit all this into one basket?” Igraine asks as she lay down on the blanket before the small _feast_ Uther has laid out across it, spilling onto the grass._

“_A little help from Nimueh,” he says easily, as he starts cutting her some bread._

_She rolls her eyes. “Of course. Now, I know you, Uther – why, exactly, are we out here, eating lunch in a picnic?”_

“_Can I not simply be taking my wife out for a nice, romantic luncheon, away from the castle walls?”_

“You_?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. “Not likely.”_

_He sighs, as he lays out some cuts of the roast duck and cheese on the bread. “Fine. I…I _did_ want for us to have some time alone. Just you and me, no Nimueh in our beds, no Gaius at our table, no lords or ladies to attend to – nothing._ _Just you and me. Please, just grant me this.”_

_She studies his face for a long moment as he holds out the bread with meat and cheese, before she smiles, and accepts both the food and whatever she found in Uther’s face._

_They sat for a while, before she asks, “Just why do you need for us to be alone?”_

_He stifles a groan – he knew she wouldn’t let it drop, but still…_

_And he also has to stifle the urge to bite his lip as he ponders the best way to answer. He knows it would be honesty, but how best to phrase it?_

_Setting down his food, Igraine seems to sense his intention as she sets her own down, too, and Uther gently takes her hand in one of his and cups her face with his other hand, and kisses her, strongly._

_She responds in kind, never one to take anything passively, and she wraps her hand around the back of his neck, pulling him closer, even as he pushes both of them to the ground, laying himself beside her, holding her close when their lips part, resting his head on her bulging belly, just above their child – according to Nimueh, their _son_._

“_That’s why,” Uther says._

_Igraine smiles indulgently at him. “Don’t worry, Uther – I am yours. Always – I promise. And a promise bound by hope is the most powerful of all.”_

* * *

Arthur could never hide any distress on his part from the king.

He hid it from the people. From the visiting noblemen. Even from his knights, somewhat, all of them only detecting that he has been training them all harder, as of late, but no true idea of why.

But Uther knew not only just how distressed he is, but what was causing it.

And considering all the other havoc both boys have been causing him, lately, without either of them knowing it, he decided he might as well check for himself.

It’s easy enough – he started by walking straight into Gaius’s chambers, one evening, just a bit before he knew the old man would be back for the night.

“Gaius?” he called out, as if looking for him.

“Sire?” he hears, instead, from the extra chamber, the one he and Nimueh used to hide in so often when Igraine went mad.

Fitting that the spare chamber should harbor and hide yet another sorcerer in the service of a Pendragon.

The door opened from its crack width to all revealing, and Arthur was the one standing there, now, this late in the day. Uther knew Arthur would normally have been heading towards his own bedchambers by now.

“Father?” he asked.

He raised an eyebrow, and Arthur answered, without prompt, with, “Checking on my servant – the one that the knights beat on last week?”

Uther remembered that all too well. Arthur had dressed down two knights rather spectacularly for taking advantage of their rank to abuse someone beneath their position and using their training as knights to do so, citing knights’ honor and chivalric code and generally, at the time, making Uther proud of Arthur as the commander of the knights of Camelot.

Even when he found out the real reason behind Arthur’s rage.

“Arthur?” he heard from behind the door, and a moment later, Merlin’s bruised face appeared over his son’s shoulder. “Sire!”

“I think we’ve established that, _Mer_lin,” Arthur said, dryly, before looking back at his warlock with a frown. “And did you not hear a word Gaius said? Stay in _bed_.”

“I can walk just fine, damnit-”

“It’s called the healing process, Merlin,” Arthur said. “You and Gaius have certainly subjected me to it, enough. Now, back to bed with you, you idiot, this instant!”

“Yes, _Mother_,” Merlin said with a long suffering sigh, and Arthur glared until Merlin relented and shuffled back.

“How is he?” Uther asked, taking a few measured steps forward as Merlin settled himself into the bed. He could see Arthur’s hands twitching and knew his son wanted to tuck the idiotic boy in, himself, but Uther gave him no leave for it.

“About ready to drop dead from not staying _still_,” Arthur said, while Merlin said in unison,

“I’m recovering well, sire.”

Uther kept his face still fairly neutral, but when Arthur looked him in the eye, and Merlin looked down at his sheets to tug uselessly at them, he did raise an amused eyebrow for just a moment.

Arthur scowled, slightly, and Uther rolled his eyes as Arthur turned back to Merlin to see Merlin trying to get up again.

“You will deteriorate if you keep getting up like you do,” Arthur said, leaning against the door, his back to Uther, leaving the king with barely a sight of Merlin, but he could still see the boy, nonetheless.

“I told you, I’m fine!” Merlin said. “Contrary to the public opinion _you_ have been spreading around, I’m not some porcelain doll that will shatter with at the touch of a feather!”

Arthur huffed. “No, _you’re_ not, but everything you seem to be holding when you trip over your own feet-”

“-or _yours_-”

“-usually seems to be, and I must say-”

“I’m fine! I’ll go mad if I’m stuck in here, any longer.”

“You mean you aren’t mad, already?”

They both seem to have completely forgotten he was here, at all.

Uther rolled his eyes and shook his head. He rather suspected that when magic ran through someone’s very veins, deeper than any _learned_ sorcerer could hope, the magic started take over their bodies, leaving normal human beings frustrated at the absolute peculiarities their bodies could come up with.

Then again, it did cause much amusement, as evidenced by the squabbling pair before him, and the memories of Igraine regularly wrestling Nimueh into a chair when the girl would forget to eat for days at a time, her magic supporting her when there was no food in her body to do so.

He froze as he stood by Gaius’s potions table, listening to Arthur berate Merlin’s care of himself, admonishing the warlock and claiming the boy was trying to leave Arthur without a servant.

He sounded just like Igraine used to when she yelled at Nimueh.

“Sire?”

He turned his head sharply at Gaius’s voice from the main doorway.

“What brings you here?” he asked, sharing an amused glace with his king as he eyed Merlin’s once-again-half-shut door, the boys’ hostile and affectionate squabbling clearly audible from within.

“I was just going to ask on the boy’s condition,” Uther said. “Make sure he isn’t taking advantage of his injuries and lazing about, and see how badly my knight damaged him. It seems it is the opposite of that I should fear.”

Gaius grinned. “Don’t worry, sire – when it comes to Arthur, you will never have to worry about Merlin lazing about.”

Uther nodded, simply, and left with only the barest, “Good night.”

He never had to worry about Nimueh and Igraine, either.

* * *

“_Hello,” Nimueh says, softly, from the door to Gaius’s extra chamber._

_He smiles at her, as she continues with, “Do you think Gaius will ever actually sleep in here?”_

“_I gave up on that long ago,” Uther says with an eyeroll. “And I tried for the longest time, too.”_

“_Aren’t you supposed to be out dealing with those rouge witches burning crops?” she asks after a moment, conversation stiff and awkward._

“_Gorlois is handling them, right now,” he said. “It was getting too…I needed to get away, before I collapsed from trying to keep my composure. Or, you know, throw a chicken at someone, again.”_

_She grins at the memory from a week before, sadness still tinting her eyes, as she sits down on the end of the bed, across from Uther, laying her hand over his, as he stares out the window._

“_Igraine?” he asks, simply. “The child?”_

“_I…I’m hoping that if we can ‘save’ some of the execution bound prisoners from below, we…I…can sacrifice their lives for your child’s.”_

_He swallows. “How dark is this magic?”_

“_How dark is that murderer’s heart?” she asks._

_A blink, two, and he says, “That much?”_

_She doesn’t respond._

“_Will it work?” he asks._

“_I…” She sighs, and he turns to see her staring at their joined hands. He doesn’t move his to lace his fingers like he normally would. “The Old Religion…people are born and people die, every day. It is a matter of life and death balancing each other out, but it’s not just that – it’s also the matter of a _price_.”_

“…_and a few prisoners already bound for execution, anyway, is no price at all,” he says, hoarsely._

_She nods and he shuts his eyes. “What then?”_

_He looks to see her staring at _Gaius_ of all people, and she says, “I don’t know.”_

_Upon realizing just she is contemplating, upon gazing at his physician and one of his oldest, truest friends, he can feel the horror freezing his veins. “No…”_

“_A price on us all,” she says, choking on her own words._

“_I will not allow it.”_

“_Then will it be your life, leaving Camelot without a king?” she asks, sharply, turning back to him. “Igraine?_ Me_, leaving Camelot _defenseless_?”_

_He shuts his eyes and hangs his head. “I hate magic.”_

_A pause._

“_I do too, Uther. I do, too. But I know your heart.”_

_He laughs at that, slightly, wondering if he had one at all as he says, “Duty comes first.”_

* * *

“Are you well?” he asked Gaius as the rest of the council left the room.

Gaius smiled at him, turning back and accepting Uther’s offered goblet of wine.

“Yes – just a little tired. Between Lady Agatha’s false labor pains and Merlin’s nightmares, I’m amazed I manage to get any sleep at all!”

“Nightmares?” he asked, almost suspiciously. “Like Morgana?”

“Something like that,” Gaius said, momentarily drifting off. “Merlin…was hit harder…by recent events, than he would care to admit.”

“The knights?” he asked.

Gaius paused, before nodding firmly.

The pause spoke volumes more.

“Are _you_ well from it?” Uther asked. “I know the boy is like a son to you.”

Gaius smiled. “He is, truly – the son I never had.”

“You do realize half the court is convinced he actually _is_ your son?” Uther asked, with a wry smile. “You certainly never bother to correct anyone who makes that assumption, and near as I can tell, neither does the boy.”

“He never had a father,” Gaius said, simply, and Uther nodded.

“Really, though,” he asked. “Are you well? Do wish for me to lighten your daytime duties?”

Gaius laughed. “I may not be as young as I used to be, but…” He paused. “Well, okay, yes, I actually _am_ quite old, but certainly not old enough that some lost sleep will prevent me from doing my duty. Thank you, milord, but no need.”

Uther rolled his eyes. He pondered asking another question after the boy’s health, but knew that even as it was, he was pushing the limits of Gaius’s concern and believability in asking after _Merlin_ of all people.

Instead, he said, “Well, he certainly gave Arthur a good reason to dress down those knights.”

“Oh, yes,” Gaius said, more amusement to his smile, now. Uther is glad to see _that_, if nothing else. “Merlin’s rather embarrassed about that, actually.”

Uther laughed. “Anyone would be, to be the cause of Arthur’s debacle. If I had not seen the damage inflicted on the boy, myself, I would have pitied knights.”

Though, he _had_ seen the damage, when two other servants carried the boy to Gaius’s quarters, and when you saw that, it was both impossible to feel pity for the knights, though it did make one wonder at the boy’s remarkable recovery, in comparison.

All Uther wondered, now, was why Merlin would use his magic to heal himself, and yet not defend himself.

But then, when he saw the devoted look in Merlin’s eyes directed towards his son so many times over the past few weeks, when he bothered to pay attention, well…he knew the answer.

Did Gaius?

“How is the boy faring in reading?” he asked. “I found he actually knows the Old Tongue.”

For a moment, Gaius stiffened, but it was so brief, Uther would have missed it had he not been looking for it.

“Yes, well…he’s taken quite an interest in books,” Gaius said, congenially. “Of all kinds. He’s taken to Latin, recently.”

“Latin?” Uther asked, incredulously. He wondered if showing the boy the book on Latin, before, had anything to do with it. Oh, just _wonderful_. “Good lord, he’ll end up better read than half the nobles.”

He had a sneaking suspicion the boy already was.

Gaius smiled. “Hence why I have taken him in towards studies in medicine, sire. As much as I can do my work so well, right now, I am not foolish enough to believe it will be forever. I can only hope that by the time I pass, Merlin will be well learned enough to take over my duties.”

_With magic, or science?_

“Do you believe he will be?” Uther asked. “Or should I start looking for a town healer to have at the ready should…should anything untoward happen to you?”

He remembered Nimueh’s words from so long ago, and cannot bear to actually think it through, the possibility of something happening to Gaius.

Gaius, however, has a slight glint in his eyes. “One way, or another, I think Merlin will manage.”

_And my best friend has been lying to me for close to two years, harboring a sorcerer under my own nose._

Or was that in his favor?

As he continued chatting with the man, Uther wondered just when his convictions ended up standing on pillars of sand.


	3. Part 3 of 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “_Aaaand…push, Your Highness, push!” Gaius yells at __Uther's__ wife._

“_Aaaand…push, Your Highness, push!” Gaius yells at __Uther's__ wife._

_And she screams, and nearly breaks Uther’s hand as she pushes their child out, Gaius waiting with a blanket, despite him and Nimueh both being covered with blood and other fluids Uther is sure he doesn’t want to know the details of... Nimueh flicks her fingers to cut the chord…_

…_but the baby makes no sound._

“_Uther?” Igraine asks, weakly._

_He brushes her hair back as she asks, “Why can’t I hear my son?”_

_But she doesn’t sound like she’s asking – she sounds like she already knows._

_Nimueh is staring at the baby in horror, as Gaius wipes it somewhat clean._

“_It is a boy,” Uther says, confirming what Nimueh had seen, and Igraine smiles, holding out her arms, despite the silence._

“_Let me hold my son,” she says._

_Gaius frowns. “Your highness…he…he has no-”_

“_Let me hold my son!”_

_Gaius relents, settling the infant _corpse_ in his wife’s arms, and gods, it was not supposed to be like this, there was supposed to be the sound of a wailing baby and dancing and cheering and Gaius yelling out the door who and what it was and Nimueh cleaning the wailing baby with a flick and blanketing the babe and mother with another…_

_But now…as much as Nimueh has the baby clean, as if just bathed, in an instant, the baby is silent…_

“_He’s cold,” Igraine says, tears in her eyes._

…_and cold._

_Nimueh shuts her eyes, as Uther stares at Nimueh in shock, before looking at Gaius’s turned back-_

_But no. She’s shaking her head, as she nears him, the blood already drying in some places of her dress._

“_What is happening?” he asks, seeing his wife crying at her child, but looking so…so..unsurprised. And regretful._

“_This spell…it needs…it needs to be blood, sacrificed._ _His blood.”_

“_Blood? I thought you said a life…” Nimueh nods, and the meaning dawns on Uther in horror. Not blood – bloodlines._

“_We…we can’t…but how…”_

“_Shh.”_

_Uther and Nimueh both look up as Igraine smiles at them sadly._

“_I love you,” she says, to Uther, looking at Nimueh right after. “I love you.”_

_He frowned. “We know…Igraine…we can…we can try for another child…”_

_But his wife shakes her head, looking at Igraine and Nimueh both. “I love you, both of you. Look after him.”_

“_He’s already dead,” Nimueh says, leaning in._

_Igraine smiles. “Kiss me?”_

_Nimueh freezes at the desperate note in her lady’s voice, but nods, leaning forward, pressing her lips to his wife’s, and deepening it, before gently pulling apart._

_Igraine looks at him, and without a word, he leans forward and does the same._

_She tastes of bitter herbs Gaius fed her for the birthing and of apples and spices and sweetcakes she ate while in pain, and she tastes of regret in her tongue and sorrow on her lips, an apology scrawled across it all._

_As she pulls away, she smiles at them, then smiles at her stillborn son, leaning down and kissing his forehead._

“_I love you,” she says, before staring at him with impossible focus, reaching up one finger to the spot where the birthing chord had just been, and crying out, “_Ich ágiefe ae min thée!_”_

“_NO!” Nimueh screams, lurching forward._

_But then his wife is glowing gold, and even when Nimueh touches her, she burns, and Uther stares, unable to understand, before turning to Nimueh._

“_What did she say?” he asks, throat tightening at the way his sorcerer was sobbing, clutching herself, as the golden glow seeped from his wife and into his son._

“_I…I…” she sobs. “She said, ‘I give my life to you’.”_

“_No…” he shakes his head, but even right before his eyes, he can see his wife weakening, none of them able to touch her, not even Gaius, standing by the table and watching with…with…_

_The gold fades straight into his son, seeping like cheap tavern paint after a rainfall, and his son is slowing as his wife turns paler and paler._

“_NO!” he yells, seeing her die before his very eyes._

_She smiles at him and Nimueh, both, and looks down at her son, before her eyes shut for one last time, and she murmured, “Love you,” to no one, all of them, leaning her head back, and he watched in horror as it slumped, the last of the glow fading into his son._

_And his son’s eyes open._

_Igraine is smiling, head rolling on the pillow to the sound of her son’s newborn wailing._

_Nimueh and Uther both stare at her in shock, before Nimueh, crying, says, “It wasn’t to be her. It was never supposed to be her. I told her that spell just to…it wasn’t to be her!”_

_He turns, slowly. “Then who…?” But he can already see it in her eyes as she stares at him._

“_You.”_

_It is to the sound of his son crying that his world falls apart, crumbling all around him, leaving him nowhere left to stand._

* * *

“Are you sure, sire?” Gawain asked. Uther kept himself from rolling his eyes as he mounted his horse.

“I can manage a single ride through a forest on my own.”

“Sire-”

“If you really must know,” Uther said. “It happens to be the pressures of the castle, including the constant guard, I wish to escape for the afternoon. Now do not speak further of this.”

Smiling, now, in realization, Gawain nodded. “Yes, sire…if anyone asks, where shall I say you went?”

“Down the southern deer paths,” Uther said, immediately pulling the horse towards the north.

He has trusted Gawain with his life many times before in battle, and hoped he was not making a mistake in trusting the man with his privacy, right now.

It would be rather difficult to explain why he is spying on his son and his manservant on _their_ so-called-hunt. Not impossible, but certainly difficult.

In the end, it doesn’t take too long to find them. Apart from the fact neither of them really expect to be followed, he knows exactly how Arthur moves and thinks.

Besides which, he was the one to show Arthur this particular spot many years ago, himself.

“…about my socks!”

“Merlin, having matching socks is a reflection upon your mental state, and shows that you are organized, and that you know what you are doing.”

“You can’t even see them!”

“On the off chance someone does-”

“If someone is spying on your socks, they probably have bigger problems.”

“You’d be surprised how many fairly normal and innocuous situations one can run into every day that would actually reveal quite a bit of your socks.”

…this was way too familiar an argument. Socks, dresses, it seemed warlocks and royalty would never quite agree on anything wardrobe related.

“…on purpose!”

“You deserved it, you prat-”

“Oh, come here, you bloody idiot-”

Uther had tied his horse back almost a hundred yards, so he’s able to slip to the edge of the clearing with deadly stealth, and hid himself in the shadows to watch.

Arthur had managed to get a grip on Merlin’s wrists, and was apparently try to wrestle the boy to the ground. In a moment, he did so, easily, straddling the boy with a smirk which made Uther roll his eyes.

Merlin’s eyes flashed gold – though really, of all things, gold? – and suddenly, Arthur was floating above Merlin, straight as a board.

Uther’s breath hitched at the expression of child-like amazement and curiosity on Arthur’s face.

He looked _so_ much like his mother.

After a moment, Arthur caught the smug expression on his warlock’s face, and promptly tried to hide his expression and school it into something more uninterested.

He failed spectacularly at it.

Arthur crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at Merlin.

Merlin mirrored it.

A beat.

Arthur moved first, grabbing Merlin by the shoulders and pulling him close for a searing kiss, which apparently made Merlin lose concentration, as Arthur landed right on top of him, again. Merlin wheezed, but didn’t seem to care as Arthur rolled off him, and they were still entangled in each other’s limbs, and all Uther could see is him and Igraine in the very same spot, before it all went to hell.

Merlin rolled them so he was on top of Arthur, who just laughed, and laughed, and Uther turned away and headed back to the forest.

The laughter ringing in his ears was Igraine’s.

Or maybe Arthur’s.

Or maybe, they were both just the same.

* * *

_He watches the murderers before him burn at the pyres, yelling spells uselessly to try and free themselves. But the very shackles, themselves, were specially cast by Nimueh –_ _they can contain the sorcerers and their magic, without being damaged during the execution._

_The crowds around him cheer, images of dead maidens fresh in everyone’s minds. The corruption of the power of Earth._

_Once the last sorcerer falls silent, Uther turns and goes back into the castle._

_Where did magic draw the line?_

Was_ there a line?_

_As he stands in the doorway to his chambers and watches Nimueh feed Arthur with magically enhanced milk, all he can do is wonder._

_It has only been a few days. Igraine’s funeral, and this band of murdering sorcerers soon after…Camelot was in deep mourning._

_She might not be able to take much more._

“_How is he?” Uther asks, leaning on his table as Nimueh sets down the feeding clothes and gently rocks the drowsy baby in her arms. She’s wearing one of the dresses Igraine made, particularly fancy daywear that Nimueh hated. Now, it swishes about her body as she dances with the little prince._

“_He misses his mother, at times,” she says, but her head is tilted in a soft smile. “But he enjoys a full belly and a warm body just as much as the next infant. Easily contented. Just like his mother.”_

_Uther swallows and watches Nimueh slowly dance about the room. The baby is, indeed, just like his mother, easily lulled by Nimueh’s voice as it – he – is. He wonders if Arthur will always be easily prey to Nimueh’s voice, like Igraine was._

“_From the shining castle,” Nimueh sang, softly, “To the glist’ning moors. One day, some day, this kingdom shall be yours.”_

_He smiles as he remembers this lullaby from his own youth. He wonders when Igraine taught it to Nimueh – for she would’ve been the only one – as he still wonders where magic’s line is drawn._

“_Tall and proud and mi-igh-ty, you will rule so fair,” and that line of the song comes out almost as a plea. “And to all of your enemies-”_

“_Of you they shall beware,” Uther sings softly, sitting in his chair._

_Nimueh looks up, startled, surprise in her eye, but her song never falters, even as Uther sings with her._

“_Dream tonight of all that’s yours, the land, the seas, the skies,” and Uther hopes one day, it will be so much more. “And one day, you will be king, so true, so just, so wise.”_

_As Nimueh continues on, singing without him, Uther murmurs for them both to hear, “Let’s hope so.”_

_Once the baby is sleeping, Nimueh sets him down in the bassinet by the bed, before sitting on the bed and watching Arthur._

_Now he wonders if she is looking for Igraine as much as he is._

“_Were you really going to kill me?” he asks._

_Nimueh doesn’t respond._

“_Well?”_

_She is still enraptured by his son. _His_, not hers!_

_But still Igraine’s, either way._

“_Answer me, damnit!”_

_Slowly, she turns to him._

“_You’re my friend,” she said. “Occasionally more, and I am proud to call you one of my best friends, but still my friend, nonetheless. Igraine…she is my _everything_.”_

_And that is the crux of the problem, right there._

_Duty, or heart?_

_The curse of the blessed._

_Camelot, or Igraine?_

_Arthur, or Nimueh?_

_Duty, or Heart?_

_And where was the line drawn?_

* * *

The next time is almost an accident – almost.

Though really, they were growing complacent in hiding the magic in Camelot.

Lounging about in a spare room which barely even has a proper door, it was easy for Uther to stand in the shadows outside and listen to them.

“…into the water.”

He heard a drop of something into water, and remembered the servant girl was carrying a basin in with them.

“I…I…” Morgana sounded excited. “I see it!”

“I don’t,” Arthur said.

“Patience,” the servant girl chimed. Guinevere, that’s her name – the blacksmith’s daughter, the smith that consorted with the sorcerers that tried to kill him.

There is the sound of rushing water, despite their apparently only being a bowl. “Okay, Morgana, calmer,” Merlin said, voice calm and steady. “Now – think only of Powys, okay?”

Powys?

He blinked in surprise – they were looking into the conflict with Powys?

As far as he knew, Arthur thought it was a bad idea, taking that ridge on the border between them.

So why the hell was he looking into it?

“Okay, now, focus on the front lines – no, no, don’t try and focus on anyone in particular, yet,” Merlin said. “The book says it’s best to do it in steps. Now – do you have the front lines?”

“Y…yes,” she said, sounding almost breathless.

“I see it!” Arthur said, suddenly. “It’s dark – maybe the water? – but I can see it.”

The water and basin were already hints of scrying, and he knew Morgana sometimes dreamed the future – woman’s intuition gone insane, right? It had to be, her dreams were _just_ dreams – but this?

“They aren’t moving,” Morgana said. “I think it…it’s…the armor – some of it looks almost like the tournament kind.”

“We only do that for…show…” Arthur said.

“Okay, look for Arthur and Uther,” Merlin said. “_If_ they’re together.”

A pause. “They’re not.”

“Then Uther,” Merlin said. “It’s him we’re concerned about.”

He would admit to himself he was surprised. What the hell were they going on about? What about _him_ concerned them, now?

“He’s standing at the front,” Morgana said, after a moment. “And this is just for show. Powys…Powys overstated their forces. They will lose if they try and fight.”

“But, is he _hurt_?” Arthur asked, voice sounding off, as if talking to someone else.

“No one is hurt, except for Powys’s pride,” Morgana said, with a morose sigh. “Damnit.”

Damnit?

“Morgana, I can’t believe you would wish such things on Father!” Arthur said at her swear.

“I don’t want him dead, Arthur!” she said. “Just hurt – enough to leave the kingdom in your hands for a while. If he sees how well you can run the kingdom now, he will be more amenable to abdicating-”

“Morgana, have you _met_ our father?” Arthur said. Our? Hm, Morgana certainly never accepted Uther as her father around _him_. “Either he will be or he won’t be, but seeing me rule well will not change that. He’s a stubborn ass.”

Well – that was always nice to hear in such blunt terms, especially from your own son. He rolled his eyes to himself as Morgana said, “Like father, like son.”

“Oh, no,” Arthur said, sounding almost like a hunter. “When it’s my father, it’s ‘stubborn’, when it’s me, it’s ‘determined’.”

Uther smiled. He had said something quite similar, though it had been Arthur and Kay, not Arthur and himself.

“Er, your majesties?” Guinevere cut in. “So even if your father pursues this, there will be no battle? No bloodshed?”

Morgana sighed. “No, Gwen, don’t worry – Uther will run around showing off his shining army to the world and Arthur is going to roll his eyes when Uther says that going after the ridge was worth the effort, especially as there was no bloodshed over it.”

“Well, at least we can also say that you’re getting better at this,” Merlin said.

“Maybe she can predict next week’s tournament, now,” Arthur said, and Uther could hear the grin in his voice.

“You won’t get any help from me,” Merlin said. “Unlike _you_, ‘sire’, I happen to have a conscience.”

“You’re lecturing me on consciences? Wait, you think I don’t have one, _Emrys_?”

“Emrys?” the maidservant asked, while Morgana said,

“Why does that sound…familiar?”

“It’s my prophetic name, apparently,” Merlin said. “The Druids call me it – like Mordred? – and the Dragon, and those evil sorcerers from East Anglia, and, well, you get the idea. It’s like my magical name or something, Merlin Emrys.”

“Your name of nobility,” the maidservant said dreamily, to which Arthur snorted.

“Merlin? Noble? He still can’t go a full day without tripping over his own two feet!”

“Actually, those are usually _your_ feet that you love to trip me over, _‘sire’_…”

And they spiraled back into their incessant bickering again. Really, they were like an old _married_ couple, the way they acted.

Though it was reassuring. His will was much stronger than Nimueh’s had been, anyway.

* * *

“_Uther, please,” Nimueh says, begging, practically._

_He looks away from her, around her rooms – sparsely decorated, as she barely ever used them – as he says, “You have until dawn tomorrow to leave.”_

“_No!” she cries, lurching towards him and grabbing fistfuls of his tunic, making him stumble back with her weight. “Please…Camelot is my home!”_

“_Magic is no longer welcome in Camelot,” Uther said, coldly, still looking away from her. “It was magic that has been tearing this kingdom apart, and magic that took my wife away from me.”_

_She stares in shock._

“_Magic brought you your son!” she cries out as she steps back._

“_And that is why I am allowing you this chance to run,” he says. “Pack your things, quickly – I know you love your books – and-”_

“_No,” she says, coldly, rage in her voice finally making him look, and regretting it._

_Looking at her, he wonders for a moment if she saw this coming. Mostly by her dress…he has come to measure her moods by her dresses._

_When she is feeling well, she will wear the elaborate court dresses Igraine made for her. When she is feeling particularly full of grief, she wears the soft nightdresses Igraine made her. When she is feeling nostalgic, she wears a luncheon dress Igraine made in a fit of Igraine-like madness._

_Today, she needed comfort, from what he does not know. She is wearing a simple red dress Igraine made just before Arthur was conceived. It leaves her arms scandalously bare, and the skirt of it looks torn to strips, making her look like some forest fey, and _was_ made purely for Igraine’s aesthetic pleasure. But he knows Igraine put her artistic touch into every single strip she cut with purpose and determination, sewing through the day, and right through the night as well, by firelight, smiling for Uther’s exasperation from the bed as she did so, and Nimueh’s lazy protests from beside him._

_He remembers this all too well._

_If it weren’t for the look of shock on her face, he would feel certain that she knew this was coming, the way she clutches at some of the strips as she swallows, rage and sorrow battling in her eyes. The few trinkets there are in the room are trembling, shaking with the force of her rage._

“_You cannot do this to me,” she says. “I am your _friend-_”_

“_Was,” he says. “You _were_ my friend. I am no longer a friend of magic…and you said as much, yourself –_ _you are not just learned of magic, but you _are_ magic. As such-”_

“_Stop hiding behind your king’s mask!” she hisses, sparks around her fingertips flashing in the dim candlelight of the room._

_A small wind picks up in the room. “You have already hurt me enough. My sisters and brothers, are all dead, thanks to you. The Druid elder, you made me _watch_ just because we once shared some magic. You burned my friends right in front of me. You would not let me stop my godson from jumping in the flames when he tried to rescue his parents! You…you…_please_. You have taken so much from me, my friends, my family…my love. Do not take away my home.”_

“_Camelot is not your home anymore,” he repeats harshly, despite the small whirlwind in the room, which had caused some guards to wait hesitantly out by the door. “Camelot will not be home to _anyone_ of magic, not anymore! I will save her from this corruption before it becomes the death of her.”_

“_If you banish magic, _you_ will be the death of Camelot!” she shouts at him, sobbing, clutching her own waist as she screams, “The Old Religion cannot be banished by your idle whims!”_

“_Then it will be driven out by the power of man and man alone,” he yells back._

_Her lower lip quivers. He doesn’t know why he picks that out in particular, notices it so vividly, but he does._

“_Please…don’t take Arthur from me. He is all I have left of Igraine. Please…”_

“_Arthur is all Camelot has left of a peaceable future,” he says._

“_He is born of magic!” she yelps. “Do not think it will stay away from him, forever. You will leave him defenseless? You will kill your own son! Kill him like you killed Igraine!”_

_His blood freezes at those words, and Nimueh’s face falls, regretting, for a moment, her words, before suddenly, her face hardens._

_Even if she does regret her words, she is not taking them back._

_His face starts to match. The mask of a king seems to have _become_ his face, and he wonders if the face of Uther will become his mask as he yells, “GUARDS!”_

_The two guards from outside rush in immediately, and everything dies down _ _as_ _ they grab her arms, and she collapses, her knees almost brushing the floor but her body held up by the guards as she says, “You will regret this, Uther Pendragon.”_

“_I already do,” he says. “Now leave – and do not come back. Ever.”_

_He turns away before he can see or hear any more. She is the last link to his dreams of using magic to build Camelot, and he knows he will crumble soon._

_Camelot needs a better king that what Uther can give._

_But Uther is all she has._

* * *

“Your son is ill, sire,” was all that the castle page had said, and Uther was out of his chambers like a shot.

It wasn’t long until he reached Arthur’s chambers, and walked in to see his son lying in bed, Gaius standing over him, Merlin behind him, and a young chambermaid going about tidying the room as Merlin helped Gaius with his various herbs and spices.

He could see their faces. The chambermaid seems content, Merlin annoyed, and Gaius long-suffering but not urgent. He could see that Arthur was apparently fine.

That didn’t change the pang of terror he felt at yet again seeing his son laid out on his bed, pale and sweating and looking worse for it.

“What has happened?” he asked coolly, though, despite his inner torment. He was a king – if nothing else, he always held a strong front, no matter what.

“Just a simple illness, sire,” Gaius said, reassuringly, in the tone Uther recognized as how Gaius conversed with any other parent when their child was hurt or ill. Or when Gaius knew the king was more worried than he would let on. “Given time, he should recover just fine.”

“I don’t _have_ much time,” Arthur growled from the bed. “I am a prince with duties, and I have been injured and laid up in bed too many times as it is-”

“Then maybe now you’ll listen to me when I tell you taking a swim at midnight so late in autumn is a _bloody bad idea_,” Merlin said, grinding some herb and sprinkling it into a jar of a thick-looking fluid of some kind.

“What would you know? If my knights-”

“It was a stupid idea for _them_, too! I said as much-”

“And pray tell, Merlin, why am I the only one who’s sick?”

That was actually a very good question.

“Because you’re the only one who wanted to go swimming under the waterfall and spent more than twice as long in the water as any of the other knights,” Merlin said, handing a goblet of something over to Arthur as Gaius checked something in a book. “At least they were intelligent enough to know not to stay in the water for long.”

Even his own son was not immune to the stupidity of youth, Uther knew that much. But this…

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he’s right,” Uther said. “It _was_ a ridiculous idea.”

“Father!” Arthur said, indignant. “It’s a ritual we do every season’s pass, you used to-”

“Staying in the water? Waterfalls? At the dawn of winter?” Uther challenged. Arthur just glared, and he rolled his eyes and hoped Gaius wouldn’t tell either of the boys he had done the same thing himself.

Twice.

And unfortunately, had fallen ill both times.

Gaius, apparently reading his thoughts, gave him an amused smirk and eyebrow raise when the boys weren’t looking, and Uther returned it with a petulant expression and a warning look in his eyes.

The court physician just shook his head and rolled his eyes at the sheer bravado-induced stupidity of Pendragon men, before turning back and handing another leaf of some kind to Merlin, who added it to the jar.

Uther fought a strong urge to sigh in relief as he left Arthur’s chambers.

As soon as he was alone in his chambers, he gasped, almost sobbing to himself as he set on the bed, assault by memories of Arthur after the Questing Beast incident, pale and unmoving and trickling along the path to death. He remembered the fear when Arthur had been left out to fight the gargoyles, and when he had seen Arthur’s body from across the court, the next day, before finding he was just unconscious. He remembered when a wound of Arthur’s had gotten infected when he was a boy, and Uther was so terrified, and it wasn’t because the Prince of Camelot might die, but because his _son_ might die. He even remembered the near-deaths Arthur has run into, watching him get bucked from his horse just a few weeks before his official knighting. He remembered watching those snakes appear from that blasted knight’s shield, about to kill Arthur. He remembered the chalice from Bayard, and the terror of _it could’ve been Arthur_ as he watched Merlin fall to the ground-

And, of course, Merlin. Looking back on many of Arthur’s run-ins, he was started to see where the boy’s magic might’ve been a crucial influence. It might have even been as far back as Lady Helen.

As he remembered the sight of the knife sailing towards his son’s heart, he can’t find it in himself to resent the boy’s magic if that was what saved Arthur.

Merlin really did have a ridiculous amount of loyalty towards Arthur. Which actually almost didn’t make sense, considering how much they bicker and fight over everything.

Then again, maybe that was just a sign of their trust. Or a symptom – he couldn’t be sure which.

“_You could say…there is a bond between us.”_

As he poured himself some wine, Uther remembered that day all too well, his gut clenching in pride and terror as he walked towards what he had been so sure was certain death. He remembered seeing Merlin with that sword – what happened to it, anyway? – and ordering the boy to prepare him for battle. For all the boy’s clumsiness and fumbling, his hands were almost impossibly smooth when it came to armor.

“_Tom’s not the royal swordsmith. I’m surprised Arthur went to him.”_

“_No, that was me.”_

Where _did_ the boy get that blade? Considering it killed the undead, and simply by how it _felt_ in his hands, well – it couldn’t be a normal sword. It had to have had magic. Merlin had to have enchanted the sword, somehow – that would explain why he was so hesitant to give it to Uther – but that still begged the question of what actually happened to it.

“_I felt he needed a better sword.”_

Better sword, indeed.

“_Look after him.”_

Even now, Uther does not regret saying those words to Merlin.

* * *

Reviews are love. :D


	4. Part 4 of 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Uther is weighted by his decision to burn those healing Druids – magic has no lines, and neither will his campaign, but that doesn’t make him feel any better – as he opens the door to his chambers._

_Uther is weighted by his decision to burn those healing Druids – magic has no lines, and neither will his campaign, but that doesn’t make him feel any better – as he opens the door to his chambers._

_And he stops dead in his tracks._

“_What are you doing here?” he hisses at the sorceress standing above Arthur, hand already on the sword on his hip._

“_What do you think?” she says, voice holding none of the warmth of the girl he once knew, as a small basket fills with all of Arthur’s clothing, and blankets, and a few small toys, as well. “I thought you were going to keep to tradition? Give him his own room from birth? Shame, Uther.”_

_The coldness in her voice, mixed with rage and ire and irony, it scares him, coming from _her_ of all people._

“_What are you planning?” he growls, again, stepping into the room, step by careful step._

_She laughs._

“_He is the last link to Igraine I have,” she says. “I brought him into this world, and he pushed Igraine out – I feel…he should come with me. Right now, he can still be magically inclined. How’s that? The son of the Destroyer of Magic apprenticed to the most powerful sorceress in Albion-”_

“_Don’t you dare,” he says, unsheathing his sword, now._

“_Tell me, Uther, why _do_ you keep him here? Surely you would want to be a proper king, and have him with a nursemaid?” she asks, with a smirk, as the impossibly small basket shuts, the room suddenly half empty as all of Arthur’s things are gone._

“_I wish to keep my son close,” he says._

“_Oh, don’t give me that.”_

“_Fine,” he says, coldly. “I wish to keep the last true connection to Igraine I have left close to me as much as possible.”_

_That stops her._

“_Of course,” she says, slowly, slyly, making him think of snakes and scorpions and other sneaky, poisonous creatures best not to contend with._ _“Only yourself, eh?”_

“_And Camelot,” Uther says. “Arthur deservse Camelot, and Camelot deserves Arthur. Leave now and I-”_

“_Will do nothing, which is exactly the problem,” she says. She is still wearing the dress she was wearing when he threw her out, almost a month ago, and for all the typical marks of a life without shelter would be, she might as well have left yesterday, clean and pristine as she is. “Tell me, those healing Druids, what did they do?”_

“_Consort with magic-”_

“_Like you?” she asks, raising an eyebrow._

“_It was a mistake – and one I plan to shelter my people from making, themselves, however unintentionally it might become.” He cocks his head to study her with narrowed eyes. “Why are you taking my son away from me?”_

“_You tried to take away the last piece of the love of my life away from me,” the blasted witch says. “I am simply returning the favor. Learn the pain of losing a loved one in such a brutal way.”_

_His eyes narrow in horror, and rage._

“_You think I don’t know what it is to lose a love?” he yells, storming towards her, grabbing his arm and pressing the blade against her neck as he yells, “Thanks to you, I know _exactly_ how that feels! It is all I can feel, lately!”_

“_That would explain a lot,” she hisses. “If all you can feel is rage and pain and grief – I would be doing everyone a favor in taking Arthur away from you!”_

_He presses the blade into the flesh of her neck, a thin red line appearing from it._

“_Don’t. You. Dare. Leave Camelot, you vile thing, and never darken her lands again!”_

_Beside him, Arthur floats._

_His eyes widen in shock, now, but he keeps his gaze on her as beside him, his sleeping son floats up, out of the bassinet, into the air, and to the ceiling, hovering just a hand’s length away from it._

“_Kill me now, and he will either die from the fall, or end up so injured and deformed that you will have to kill him, anyway,” she says. “At least with me, he will live.”_

_His chest labors as he breathes in terror and fury. “You…you wouldn’t…”_

_She jerks her head to the smoke outside. “Grief makes people do strange, strange things, Uther Pendragon. You of all people should know this.”_

_He swallows, and lets go of her arm, his heart shattering at the smug look on her face as she backs away from him._

_With a bizarre sigh from her, Arthur floats right back into her arms._

“_Don’t worry, my little prince,” she coos to the baby in her arms, for a moment looking like the girl she was the day after Igraine’s funeral, sweet and kind and loving, and maybe somewhere deep down, when she had Arthur in her arms, this last piece of _Igraine_ in her arms, she still was._

“_Nimueh…” he says, finally saying, thinking, her name. “You cannot…you cannot take him from _Camelot_…if not from me, then-”_

“_Camelot will have him back, one day,” she says. “_Maybe_. She doesn’t need Arthur – I know about succession.”_

“_Then you know the wars it can cause!”_

“_Camelot is already at war – what is one more?” her smirk grows cruel. “Let us see you fashion a kingdom out of _that_, Uther Pendragon.”_

_She turns down to Arthur, again. “Where shall we go first, my prince? We have the whole world before us, away from this wretched kingdom and your hateful father…”_

_If…If…If she took him away…Uther knew he would never see his son again._

_No…no. He has already lost his wife, his friend, and his lover in them both. He would not lose his son, too – his only family left._

“_NO!” he screamed, sword rising, and he aimed just underneath his son as he raged forward._

_Nimueh hadn’t seen that coming, and when the red faded from Uther’s vision, he realized he hadn’t either._

“…_oh…”_

_Nimueh stares at the sword protruding from her stomach, and the blood spurting forth from it, for a moment, before she starts to fall off his sword, the angle of the sword enabling such, as Uther leaves it in her and reaches for Arthur, pulling the still-sleeping babe into his arms._

_She lands on the bed, gasping, before she reaches down with shaking hands and clutches the blade just above her skin, and with a darkening of her eyes and a look of agonized focus, the blade slips out, over the corner, and clatters to the floor._

_Uther pulls his son close to his body, tight, relieved that his son hadn’t even woken, let alone been harmed, and not giving a damn how unarmed this leaves him._

_He turns to his once-friend, once-lover, and says, “I will protect my son. Not the prince of Camelot, not the future king – but my son.”_

_She stares at him, her hands glowing slightly, before her blood is seeping back _into_ her wound, the skin repairing, even the cloth stitching back into its proper dress-shape._

_Nimueh stands before him, fully repaired in body, and absolutely shattered in heart and splintering in mind._

“_Uther’s son is protected,” she says, coldly, her body seeming to fade into the very air around her. “Is Igraine’s?”_

_And with that, the last vestige of his once-best-friend vanishes into the air and magic around him._

_He pulls the infant tight to his body as he walks slowly over to the door, opens it, and yells, “Guard – find a page and get a chambermaid in here! There is blood to clean up!”_

_The guard nods, before his eyes widen when he sees Uther’s chambers, and says, “Your highness, is everything-”_

“_Yes, yes,” he says. “A sorceress, she’s gone, but her blood is not. I need my entire bedding changed to sleep here, tonight.”_

“_Right away, sire,” the guard says, leaving as he calls for a castle page._

_That night, Uther sleeps clutching his baby, his son, his Arthur, close to him all night, and sleeps with fear in his heart and determination in his soul, all of it fuelled by the little infant in his arms._

_Camelot would have her king._

_And Uther would have his wife’s soul and heart in his arms, in Arthur._

* * *

“The battle is over,” Lionel said as he kneeled before Uther.

Morgana had been wrong. And right.

Powys hadn’t expected the size of Uther’s forces. They were willing to surrender.

What Morgana hadn’t seen was that Mercia would offer their help – and Powys would take it.

Thankfully, however, he wasn’t hurt at all, and Arthur quite mildly, and there were few casualties on all sides.

“Prince Arthur is rounding up the knights to get a full recount of the battle,” Lionel continued.

“And the treaty talks?” he asked.

“Not until this evening, sire – Bayard needs a bit more time to sort through his army.”

“Very well – tell the men to rest and recuperate, but be on guard tonight, just in case this is some ploy on Bayard’s part.”

Gawain nodded as Uther headed towards the command tent, walking in to see Arthur, Lucan, Kay, and the few other injured knights being tended to by Elaine and Merlin.

“Just bandage it up and let me go,” Arthur snapped at Merlin.

“I have to put on the poultice!” Merlin snapped right back, Elaine and the other knights looking on the debacle, amused. “Otherwise you’ll get an infection-”

“I have men to attend to-”

“Do you want to attend to them with one leg?”

“I have both legs!”

“If the wound gets infected, you’ll have to chop the damn thing off!”

Arthur growled, but nodded in consent, and Merlin immediately kneeled before Arthur to apply the paste. He looked frustrated by something which didn’t appear to have to do with Arthur, himself.

Come to think of it, so did Arthur.

“Father,” Arthur said in greeting upon noticing Uther. “I’m sorry to not be out there-”

“Don’t be,” Uther said, cutting him off as a squire came to help him out of his armor, joining the carefully laid out sets of the other present knights’ armors. “I would prefer you taking a few minutes longer in here than to lose your leg.”

Merlin smirked and some of the knights snorted as Arthur blushed, slightly, but otherwise said, “Yes, Father. According to Bedivere, we lost only one knight and twelve foot soldiers.”

“Let us count our blessings that these are the only casualties we have,” Uther said, taking the cup of water Elaine offered as he said, “Rest easy – by sunset, I want a full guard ready, again, in case Bayard is lulling us into false peace.”

“Yes, sire,” the knights all nodded, including Arthur, as Merlin finished off applying the various pastes, still looking vaguely annoyed – which was strange, considering Arthur was _actually sitting still_ for it – as he started wrapping the bandages. Even Arthur looked annoyed at the other knights, though he hid it very well. If Uther hadn’t been looking for it, from Merlin, he wouldn’t have found it.

Hilariously enough, this time, nothing in particular triggered his realization. As he left, mind turning over Merlin’s method of treatment, he pondered how it might work with magic, and realized that was it – with others around, Merlin could not use magic.

It seemed Arthur had become accustomed to magic. Hm, he hoped Merlin was willing to learn more advanced healing spells, as the more Arthur got used to them, Uther knew Arthur would become more and more reckless-

He almost froze on the spot when he realized what he thought. He hoped Merlin would learn _more_.

…damnit.

Directing the soldiers and knights with only half a mind on it, Uther felt his mind start to resemble the battlefield at the realization that he knew full well about Merlin’s magic, and was never going to touch him.

He knew he would see nothing but Arthur’s blood in his eyes if he so much as tried.

Lord knew even thinking about it, right now, made him see Igraine’s.

* * *

_Uther is caught somewhere between shock and expectation when the candles flicker out around him, and he turns to see her beside him._

_And just like always, she is wearing the dress he sent her away in, looking like it just happened yesterday, while he has aged years and years beyond his time with his duty as king._

“_I should’ve known,” he says, and really, he should have. Tristan? Nimueh _would_ harness his rage and grief against the royal family, against _him_. The dead man’s sorrow is palpable, and still was to this today – he can almost _feel_ the Black Knight._

“_It is more than I had hoped for, Uther. Soon Arthur will be slain, and you will have sent him to his death.”_

_When did she become so articulate?_

_And when did her hatred of Uther eclipse her love of Igraine, manifesting in Arthur?_

“_Haven’t you tired of revenge?” he asks, genuinely wondering so._

“_Haven’t you?” Wincing, he refuses to acknowledge that she might have a point. “You began this war when you threw me from the court and slaughtered all of my kind.”_

“_You brought it on yourselves – you practiced evil,” he says, because it _was_ evil. He has seen its corruptive forces, seen what it can do to a kingdom when powered by greed and rage. And when is it not? Anyone with power always craves more._

_Except, he can control a high-minded knight, or a slithering nobleman. But he cannot contain, truly _control_,__ a warlock like he needs to._

_He cannot allow that in his kingdom._

_And Nimueh knows this all too well._

“_I was your friend, Uther, you welcomed me, here!” she cries out, sorrow and indignation evident in her voice._

“_You betrayed that friendship.” She threatened to kill Gaius, tried to kill Uther, and paved the way to kill Igraine. She was no friend, not of the Pendragon family._

“_I did as you asked.” He never asked for their deaths. “I used the magic you so despised to give your barren wife the son you craved.”_

_And the harsh tone in her voice, of Igraine, is so unlike her, that he can’t bear to hear Igraine spoken like that, and he can’t bear to hear _Nimueh_ speak of her like that._

“_Don’t. Ever speak of her in that way! She was my heart. My soul. And you took her from me.”_

_She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t shy away._

_She doesn’t respond at all._

_The magic has taken over her, he is _sure_ of it._

“_She died giving birth to your son,” she says, sounding almost desperate._ _“It was not my choice. That is the law of magic. To create a life, there had to be a death. The balance in the world had to be repaid.”_

_Balance._

_He is starting to get sick of that word._

_And people are born and people die every day – why did one life matter so much to the Old Religion? ‘A price,' she had said, but why? Someone is already paying it, why must he?_

“_You knew it would kill her.”_

_He still remembers those words of death and life pouring out of his wife’s lips, remembers the guilt he felt when he was almost willing to kill Gaius for Arthur, remembers telling Nimueh, in the end, to forget about the entire thing, remembers the joy of finding out about Igraine’s pregnancy, only to have that ripped away when Nimueh said it was her doing._

_His best friend killed the love of his life._

_That is what he remembers._

“_No. You’re wrong,” she says, with startling and typical conviction in her voice._ _“If I had foreseen her death, and the terrible retribution you would seek, I would never have granted your wish.”_

_Would she have?_

_He wonders what he would have done if he had seen what would happen._

“_I wish you hadn’t.” And there – he hates himself for it, how he often wishes to not have wasted Igraine’s life on Arthur’s, and hates how that comes out in his thoughts, but there it is. He never was particularly good at hiding things from Nimueh, no matter how often he still _did_ manage it._

“_You wish you didn’t have a son?”_

_He cannot and will not answer._

_He has no answer, and he hates it._

_She smirks, a look that had once been so foreign on her face now looking so at home on it, it rips his heart and guts to shreds with one glance._

“_Well, your wish will come true, tomorrow.”_

_And she says that with such surety and conviction, like she used to when promising to learn a complicated spell or help Igraine with her stitching or even just when she promised she would wear a courtier’s dress without cocking anything up…_

_And she always succeeded._

_No._

_It cannot and will not happen._

“_I will not let you take him,” he says, remembering the night she tried to take Arthur from him, steal the baby away in the night._

_He meant it then and means it now._

_Her gaze no longer wavers at him, and it never truly did, for she had always looked royalty in the eye, despite her serving status and Igraine’s royal one._

“_I have watched so many people I love die at your hands, Uther Pendragon. Now it is your turn.”_

_When she vanishes, he hates himself for having left Arthur so defenseless against magic, and for the way he misses her presence by his side._

* * *

"Gaius?" he called out into the physician's chambers - just to make sure.

No response. Good.

He knocked on Merlin's door, a moment, before shoving it open – also empty. Excellent.

At first, he simply opted to set his note down on the center of his pillow - considering how much of a mess the rest of his bed was, that was least likely place he would miss it – and leave, but then, just before he left...he remembered all of Gaius's books. Well, it helped he could see them, but still.

Specifically, he remembered wandering in here many a time to find Nimueh reading, her lips moving as she mouthed out the sounds to herself, her reading a little less sure than the warlock which currently resided in these rooms.

Turning sharply on his heel, keeping a careful ear out for footsteps down the hall - trained from years of avoiding his wife in this very room - he started searching.

He started with the cupboard, to quickly find just a few piles of rags and clothes stuffed in there - honestly, armed with magic, why can't he keep his own damn rooms clean? - and quickly set about the rest of the room. Under the bed, at first, was most promising, but he didn't find anything, at first...until considering that the boy might already know concealing spells and glamours.

Then he tapped the floorboard - hollow underneath. Either the boy was truly clever in avoiding using glamours, or he was truly an idiot for using a bloody floorboard.

And really, it was just sad and pathetic that he's wound his mind so tight around this entire matter that Merlin can either be the world's biggest idiot or a veritable genius, and that there might not even be a difference, with him.

He shook his head as he lazily kicked aside a few more piles of laundry, some of it the boy’s, some of it Arthur's, and some of it Gaius's - if he weren't certain that Gaius knew of Merlin's magic, he would worry about the man attempting to run Merlin ragged on purpose - finding mostly a few medical books and parchments underneath. These, he was more careful about placing back where he found them. Some were random notes on political situations - in Arthur and Merlin's handwriting, so apparently, Arthur was trying to teach Merlin about politics, and who knows, maybe the boy could be useful to Arthur in more ways than magic, one day - and some notes on herbs and their properties Gaius was trying to teach him. There was one book on Roman war tactics, in Latin - how well did Merlin know the language, now? He'd have to test the boy - and a few more books on medical science.

It was practically behind the bedpost that he found a magic book. Near as he could tell, from the way it was hidden, the boy was in a rush this morning...and had also apparently grown complacent with his magic over time. He smirked at the letter on the bed, knowing that would change very, very soon.

His eyes widened, though, as he opened the book and realized...it was Nimueh's favorite book. While it certainly covered far from _every_ spell, it had the widest range of random spells. A little bit of everything.

There were little slips of parchment here and there, notes from Merlin. In some of the blank pages in the back, he could see additions from the boy, himself - his knowledge of the Old Tongue apparently let him start to create his own spells, already, despite having far from mastered the art…_abomination_…art, of magic, himself.

He knew Nimueh had given Gaius the book for safekeeping – and he allowed Gaius this one last relic, to keep Gaius sane and to have a last resort source of information if necessary – but to know that Merlin now had it…

Shutting the book, he ran his hands down the familiar spine, and even while he was assaulted with a particularly bizarre memory of being hit with the book while he was drunk and Nimueh was in a fit, all he could feel was that Arthur was _safe_.

Nimueh had kept her lover’s son safe, after all.

* * *

Merlin frowns as he sees the small, folded letter on his bed, and his eyebrows shoot up – probably too much time with Gaius – when he sees that it's actually addressed to him.

He casts a quick spell to detect for any poisons or curses, and finding none, picks it up and unfolds it.

His eyes widen with every word he reads.

_Merlin Emrys,_

_You need not concern yourself with my identity. I know you are a warlock. And I do truly believe that magic is a corruptive force which Camelot deserves to be free of._

_However, I have seen you protecting Arthur with your life. You also seem to hold his heart in your hand, and yet you do nothing but treasure it._

_I have heard, and said, that to know the heart of one sorcerer is to know them all. But a single heart can have many pieces to it, shattered and when whole, both._

_The part of a sorcerer’s heart that dictates your actions, your loyalty, and your protection of the Prince, is small, indeed, and rare. But it is strong, and powerful, especially when it has a focus, as you do, in the Prince of Camelot._

_I hope that this is the only piece of a sorcerer’s heart that you possess. You are powerful, this much is evident. You have so much potential, and especially so much potential to choose the dark path, to kill the king, and place Arthur on the throne, as your puppet. You have immense and easy capability of taking over Camelot by taking over her heart._

_And yet, all you do is protect Arthur, and cherish the prince as if he were part of your own mind, soul, and body, and you simply bide your time until he is king to let your true self and powers be known._

_Continue to do so, and you will remain under the eye of the law. If you reveal yourself, I will offer no help, anonymously or otherwise. Your discretion is on your own head._

_I am watching you closely. And if you whisper one word of this to anyone – including Arthur, or Gaius, or anyone else who already knows of your magic – then it will also be on your head, and you will find yourself on the executioners block before you can blink._

_And believe me, I will know if you do._

“Oh, shit,” he says, collapsing onto his bed.

Merlin stares at the letter in shock until he hears the door opening, and quickly shoves it under his pillow as Gaius comes in.

“Merlin?” Gaius says, seeing the slightly panicked look on Merlin’s face. “Are you all right?”

_And believe me, I will know if you do._

“Er…just Arthur being a prat,” Merlin says, and Gaius rolls his eyes and leaves, and Merlin breathes a sigh of relief, shutting his door, turning back to his pillow, and the letter underneath it, a speculative look in his eye as he pulls it out, and set to studying the handwriting itself, trying to find if he can recognize who it belonged to.

* * *

As yet another council meeting ended, and Arthur told Merlin, “Make sure my bath is drawn when I get back from training,” and left, Uther called out to the boy, “You – seeing as you actually have an useful skill, put it to use – organize these parchments.”

“Yes, sire,” Merlin said, a slightly resigned tone for the addition to his chore load in his eyes, even though Uther, himself, was starting to sort some of the papers, as well.

Then again, he doubted anyone would be truly surprised at him acting like this. He did have his occasional bouts of paranoia concerning these papers.

Not like anyone blamed him, after the mis-sorted grain line debacle from five years ago.

Once the rest of the council members had left (at least appropriately folding and rolling up the papers and closing the ledgers before leaving, most likely because they saw Uther, himself, going through them), Uther and Merlin worked in fair, efficient silence. The boy was still slightly jumpy around him, but for the most part seemed happy to just focus single mindedly on the task before him.

If Uther hadn’t known…

“There,” Uther said, vaguely pointing to his general area around his seat as he moved up the row of seats to separate crop accounts from army finances. “Deal with those.”

As Merlin neared, Uther quietly pushed the papers in the servant’s direction and pretended to busy himself with wine, while looking over the summary of the meeting, of the kingdom’s money and its paths, as Merlin skimmed through his papers to sort through the mess.

Once he heard total silence, not even the sound of shuffling papers, he looked up.

As he drank the wine, he smirked as the blood drained out of his manservant’s face while reading Uther’s notes. Probably recognizing the handwriting right about now.

The idiot still managed to at least try and push some papers together, halfheartedly, before he stopped and looked up shakily as Uther started leaving, considering his ultimate goal done. Merlin opened his mouth, then closed it, and Uther turned on his heel and headed out.

Uther paused at the door, and turned around. “I meant every word I said, Merlin Emrys. And if any harm should befall my son, I _will_ hold you responsible. And I advise more caution in your secrecy – if anyone else catches you, I _will_ put you to death.”

As the servant’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped, he said simply, “And I also meant every word I said about mentioning this to anyone. Your discretion is on your head. This conversation, this entire debacle, _never_ happened.”

“…sire?” he asked, his brain finally catching up. Bloody hell, and this boy was a powerful sorcerer? It was moments like these that made him realize why it was Merlin was able to fool them all for so long: even without the acting, the boy really _was_ an idiot. An occasionally intelligent (never _smart_), and very powerful idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.

“I once told you to look after him,” he said. “I meant it.”

He left the chambers swiftly, leaving absence and the oppressive silence of an immense council hall to do the work of intimidation for him, and when he got his chambers, he smiled to himself at a job well done, knowing his son was protected by Merlin, and Merlin was now at least _guarded_ in his caution.

All in all – he may have finally gotten something with magic _right_.

* * *

“_You know,” Nimueh said, slyly, as she and Uther hid from Igraine, again, in Gaius’s spare chamber, and he finished telling her his plan to change the outcome of Mercia’s war with Powys without ever actually entering the war, itself. “You are one manipulative bastard.”_

_He grinned. “Why, thank you, milady.”_

“_I’m _not_ a lady,” she huffed. “And, you’re welcome…I think.”_

“_Wench.”_

“_Arse.”_

_They looked each other in the eyes with blank faces, before they broke out grinning._

“_I really do hope we never change,” Nimueh said, before she suddenly held out her hand, palm up, and he took it, almost like a knight would a lady, but not quite – something far more powerful on both their parts._

“_I swear to be your friend until the day I die,” she said, softly._

“_And I so swear the same to you,” he said._

_A tight squeeze, and they let go, as he asked, “Was that bound by magic?”_

_She shook her head, and said simply, “Hope.”_

* * *

**Spells:**

_Thurhhaele_ – **heal**, imperative singular

_Dunnath_ – **be invisible**, imperative plural

_Frícath ac me_ – **dance for me**, imperative singular

_Setlath_ – **rest**, imperative plural

_Ich_ _ágiefe_ _ae min thée_ – **I give my life to you**, present simple

**Update: All these spells are in _Old English_,** which is **the language they use for the spells on the show.** Because of all the interest in it**, _there is now a link on my profile_** (under "My Links", it's the very first one - "Old English") which goes to a **post on my LiveJournal which explains Old English**, explains the language, and **has links to the best websites and translators for Old English**, and also has some bonus stuff on runes and charms specifically for Merlin writers. :D

* * *

Title from Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice”, Act IV, Scene 1:

The **quality of** **mercy **is not strain'd,  
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven  
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd;  
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes:  
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes  
The throned monarch better than his crown;  
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,  
The attribute to awe and majesty,  
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;  
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,  
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,  
It is an attribute to God himself;  
And earthly power doth then show likest God's

****

* * *

A/N:

Thank you for reading. This is the last installment, so please review! 


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